With Christmas coming, sales of chocolate gold coins have no doubt soared as parents get ready to fill their little ones' stockings with edible treasure.

But wealthy individuals worried about what the New Year could bring are instead stocking up on gold chocolate bars.

Swiss refinery Valcambi has been selling its CombiBar to private investors in Switzerland, Austria and Germany who are worried about a return of Weimar Republic-style hyperinflation.

The size of a credit card, the 50g gold CombiBars are easily be broken into one gram pieces to be used as money in times of crisis.

Now the company wants to bring them to market in the U.S. and build up sales in India - the world's largest consumer of gold, where it has long served as a parallel currency.

Mr Mesaric said the advantage of the CombiBar - dubbed a 'chocolate bar' because pieces can be easily broken off by hand - is that it is easily carried and is cheaper than buying 50 one gram bars.

'The produce can also be used as an alternative method of payment,' he said.

In Europe, demand is particularly strong among the Germans, still scarred by post-World War One hyperinflation, when money became all but worthless and it took a wheelbarrow full of notes to buy a loaf of bread.

'Above all, it's people aged between 40 and 70 that are investing in gold bars and coins,' said Mr Mesaric. 'They've heard tales from their parents about wars and crises devaluing money.'

The CombiBar is particularly popular among grandparents who want to give their grandchildren a strip of gold rather than a coin, said Andreas Habluetzel, head of the Swiss business of Degussa, a gold trading company.

'Demand is rising every week,' Mr Habluetzel said. 'Particularly in Germany, people buying gold fear that the euro will break apart or that banks will run into problems.'

To read the complete article, see:Fancy a chunk? No, it's not chocolate... It's a solid gold bar you can break up (and could be the future of money if there's economic meltdown)(www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2251757/Fancy-chunk
-No-chocolate--Its-future-money-euro-goes-under.html)