ON THOUSAND OUNCE BARS

About that Thousand Ounce Bar

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

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

Then I recall when the firm was contacted by an attorney representing a client who wanted to liquidate a thousand-ounce gold bar. I never handled one of those since management declined to buy 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 melted and 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 asset that 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)

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