About that Thousand Ounce Bar

When I worked for a Minneapolis bullion dealer, we had a garage where clients could drive in tomake a secure pick-up or delivery. I recall the day when a client backed his pick-up into thegarage and I helped unload seven thousand-ounce bars from the back. They don't weigh 80pounds and I couldn't lift one in one hand.Later, working for another firm, it was my responsibility to ship those bars. A thousand-ouncebar will fit cross-wise in a large postal flat-rate box with a maximum weight of 70 pounds. Wegot good value from the post office with those typically weighing in at around 69 pounds, 4ounces.

A thousand-ounce bar of silver weighs 83 1/3 Troy pounds. The postal weight at 69.25 poundswould be about 1108 ounces avoirdupois. The conversion rate would be about 1097 ounces plusthe packaging.

Then I recall when the firm was contacted by an attorney representing a client who wanted toliquidate a thousand-ounce gold bar. I never handled one of those since management declined tobuy it. We would not risk that it might be drilled and plugged with tungsten.

If we would act as a broker on that deal, we would have sent it to our refiner to have it meltedand assayed. Payment from our refiner would take about six weeks.

Thus a thousand-ounce bar of gold may have a high theoretical value, but it is not a liquid assetthat can be easily converted to cash.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
VIDEO: A THOUSAND OUNCE BAR OF SILVER(https://www.coinbooks.org/v24/esylum_v24n22a08.html)