The Perth Mint has posted a new essay today addressing the news of a tungsten filled gold bar recently discovered: http://www.perthmintbullion.com/blog/blog/12-03-26/Fake_Bars_-_The_Facts.aspx Fortunately we can all be relieved that The Perth Mint has discovered no fake bars in their gold refining processes in 20 years. And, we are assured that it is a reliable guide, because all non Perth Mint product (and some) bought, is melted and refined for re-sale, and furthermore, the gold industry is experiencing a high rate of retail return. In other words, gold product is being bought and re-sold so rapidly, that this Perth Mint study covers much of the retail and commercial sector churn. Hopefully it might be the case if a scientific approach were taken to such a study, that fakes would be found to be rare, but surly the Perth Mint has adequate resources to publish facts and estimates on the rate of bullion retail return instead of vague comments such as: "In the retail market turnover of physical product is relatively high." And: "The point is that with such turnover of physical, the lack of fakes appearing in our and Heraeus' operations indicates to us that fakes are few and far between." Although many are very grateful for re-assurances about the reliability of retail gold, The Perth Mint have missed an opportunity here to back up their conclusions with meaningful statistics, and educate the public at the same time about the rate of return of gold bullion product.
The turnover statement is based on the amount of melting of other refiner's 400oz and 1000oz bars and the amount of 1kg we know end up with the jewellery trade. The retail turnover is also based on our buybacks in our shop and from dealers. However, this is based on my gut feel/experience with the general magnitude of the turnover. I haven't actually calculated hard numbers on this from our computer systems. It is something I have on my blog post to-do list, particularly in respect of the Australian market and how much gold/silver is held in this country privately. A fairly big job as it requires going through a lot of historical records to establish what we sold domestically v overseas and then what we bought back and melted v resold as well as talking to dealers etc etc.
