Gold forbidden in Europe ?

[LargoWinch]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

Isn't it interesting how governments in recent years have become increasingly interested in the transactions and movement of $10,000 amounts of gold and cash? Even smaller amounts of such (amounts as small as $3000) are deemed suspicious by such agencies as the IRS in the U.S. and Canada Customs and Revenue Agency in Canada. Dealers and banks are required to keep records of transactions and monitor the total amount transacted in a year per customer in order to not provide a service for money laundering.

And who is a dealer? It may be a cheque casher, a car dealer, a banker, a coin dealer, a foreign exchange service, a smelter, a jeweler, even a commodity broker, stock broker, etc. So just about anybody in any business is a dealer, and they are required to report to the government. :eek:

Kitco told me that they do not send any data to the gov. but I don't believe it one sec.

[Down Under]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

That's one possibility; another is, that no one's interested in selling at these prices. In other words, the price, even with some premium over spot, is still way too low.

Time will tell...

[hellstan]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

Premium in Europe is not that high as for now : around 5-7 % on most common coins.
There's been a short flare with the foremost dealer in France outrageously
speculating on a burst of fear just before/after Paulson Plan as been
adopted. Some coins skyrocketed from 120 € to 190 € in 3 days.
A pre-heat run of times to come ?

PS : Needless to say, reasonable dealers were laughing off these prices. They never
went beyond 140 € on the same coins.

[uranian]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

Everything should be for sale, at a price. Is the problem that the price is so far above spot that nobody bothers buying in Europe?

nope. the problem is that none of the dealers have any quantity of gold coins to sell, regardless of price. the closest i can find to gold bullion in norway now is a single one troy ounce gold necklace. really. there are bars for sale at 5% over spot from one dealer in the UK, none of the now 3 dealers (1 has left the business recently) have anything other than a small handful of coins for sale at any one point.

[hellstan]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

nope. the problem is that none of the dealers have any quantity of gold coins to sell, regardless of price. the closest i can find to gold bullion in norway now is a single one troy ounce gold necklace. really. there are bars for sale at 5% over spot from one dealer in the UK, none of the now 3 dealers (1 has left the business recently) have anything other than a small handful of coins for sale at any one point.

There is no shortage. I've been in two european capitals last week, and coins were freely available.

[uranian]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

There is no shortage. I've been in two european capitals last week, and coins were freely available.

as you wish. in the capital of norway, there are no coins or bullion in any form (short of medals) available. in the UK, i'm aware as of a couple of days ago of 1 of the 3 dealers who has 50+ sovereigns, the other 2 have none.

regardless, i spoke with the biggest refiner in norway today and they say they know nothing of this "gold to be illegal" story. i've spoken to a few dealers/refiners on this and it seems to be completely unsubstantiated.

edited to add that i just had an email from an irish friend, who has emptied the only irish coin shop of gold coins. they don't know when they will get more.

[hellstan]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

uranian : regarding shortage, I spoke with my dealer just this morning.
French coins, 50 pesos, eagles, krugerrand are freely available.
Premium on all coins is around 5-7 %.
Premium on marks and pesos is only 2-3%.
You'll have PM with his exact details if you wish.

Regarding gold trading being suspended, the so-called rumor emanates
from the first goldbug and gold analyst in Austria, who wrote a letter to several fellows gold analysts in the US. I saw the letter circulated to the
banks and it seems genuine. It doesn't mean that it's in the pipe. It means
an instruction has been circulated as a measure of precaution.

[uranian]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

for the record, i have just spoken with the dealer that hellstan was kind enough to PM me details of. he stated to me that he has some mexican pesos and kg bars only (before i told him i was not in his country). though apparently in person he states something else. it is suggested that demand is so high that the shop are unwilling to deal with people outside of their country, for some unfathomable reason. i know of people that would happily fly to buy gold in quantity now, but apparently this dealer doesn't want such customers.

[hellstan]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

Uranian,
I never said this dealer didn't want foreign customers
- I'm not privy of their sales policy. Why should I ?
You contacted them and they won't ship abroad.
Fair enough.
So I suppose this is the reason.
Only a supposition from my part, and certainly not the official
position of this dealer.
In Paris, though, you have several dealers around rue Vivienne
which suffer no shortage at all in coins.
A nice city to visit, too. :rolleyes:

[uranian]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

well, a belgian acquaintaince from another forum called the referred to shop today:

I called the shop today, they have not a single 1 ounce coins in stock. He allso couldn't give any ETA on incoming coins since they coulldn't find any themselfs.

i'll soon be reduced to buying 14 karat jewellery here in norway. tho my dealer suggests that a wave of unemployment will encourage people to sell gold, rather than just buy hand over fist until there's none left for sale anywhere. latest i can see is that APMEX have 40 krugers left (they're selling around 100 per hour) at 55 bucks over spot, and around 1000 GAEs for around 100 bucks over spot.

[hellstan]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

40 krugers left (they're selling around 100 per hour) at 55 bucks over spot.

Regarding the fact they sell 100 an hour, have you :
- witnesses that yourself ?
- heard him tell you this ?
- heard people ?

Not that I doubt what you say, but I heard so many false news
recently (for example, files of people waiting on the sidewalk
in Paros and Brussels, which I positively know, from first hand
witnesses or phone calls check that is absolutely untrue.:rolleyes:

[ironlady]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

I am not in Europe but I want to relay what happened here in Canada yesterday when trying to buy gold. You know...Canada the land of mining.

I bought both gold bullion and silver about 18 months ago, from both TD Canada Trust and CIBC. I decided to by the smaller sized 1 oz. bars yesterday. In Canada you can buy gold directly from our banks.

I went to see my manager to place the order and he told me he could not take my order. There was no bullion available in Canada anymore, either gold or silver.

I asked about the gold Maple leaf coins. He told me they did not deal with the coins, since they were not considered an investment but rather a collectors item.

I knew that Scotia Bank sold the coins, (thanks to an ITulip member)so I went across the street to see if they had any coins. The teller called the order desk and yes they still had coins. You pay a premium to get coins, but I was able to order them and they told me they would be available for pick up in 5 days from the branch. I paid $52 USD over the spot price per oz.. I did not go back to CIBC to see if they had bullion, since the last time I tried, it turned into a 3 month ordeal waiting for delivery and this was 18 months ago when supply was not an issue.

In my discussion with the TD Canada Trust manager I said how is it possible that the price has fallen so hard if there is no bullion available, and no one has any idea of when it will be available? He said the COMEX is trading paper, not bullion and it is distorting the market. He said he had clients waiting to get bullion and there was no delivery date from their Precious Metals department. He said no one is selling and if you don't have sellers you don't have product. He then asked if I would be interested in selling my bullion.

If this were copper and there was no copper available there would be hell to pay. If this was oil, there would be hell to pay. Where in the hell is the sense in this?

Ironlady

[hellstan]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

If this were copper and there was no copper available there would be hell to pay. If this was oil, there would be hell to pay. Where in the hell is the sense in this?

Ironlady

To (try to) make a long story short, the sense in here is this (Cheuvreux, major french investment firm, parent to the second largest retail french bank, Report on Gold Market, 2006, some excerpts) :

1. "The gold-lending policies of central banks distort the supply and demand picture for thengold market. Gold borrowed from central banks and sold into the spot market has the effect of increasing supply in the short term and depressing the gold price. Many commentators seem relaxed, believing that almost all the gold lent by the central banks is used to cover the forward selling of production by gold producers. This is the assumption made by the World Gold Council in its "official" estimates of gold supply and demand. Even if this were true, which it isn't, we are less sanguine. Since forward selling by producers accelerates supply, the delivery of the gold back to central banks will therefore restrict supply in the future. If gold demand is rising and producers are reducing forward selling at the same time, as is currently the case, the deficit in the gold market will become more exaggerated (we analyse the deficit in gold supply below)."

2.
"If a number of central banks decide to withdraw their gold from the market, it would cause a serious squeeze. Lease rates and spot prices would rise sharply as borrowers tried to repay their loans….(causing) substantial losses to producers who have sold gold forward…to fabricators and distributors, and to commercial banks."
In short, this describes a potential gold derivatives banking crisis as outlined by the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, which we describe in the next section.

3.
Officially, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury do not trade in the gold market. Indeed, suppressing the free market price of gold contravenes US anti-trust legislation.
Publicly available evidence may suggest otherwise, however. A comment by Alan Greenspan in his testimony to the House Banking Committee in July 1998 confirmed both intervention and its aim of restraining strength in the gold price:
"…central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise". He later elaborated on this comment in a letter to Senator Joseph Lieberman.
"This observation simply describes the limited capacity of private parties to influence the gold market by restricting the supply of gold, given the observed willingness of some foreign reserves – not the Federal Reserve – to lease gold in response to price increases."
This appears to be clear evidence from Greenspan that central banks do intervene in the gold market, even if he denies the involvement of the Federal Reserve.

4.
− At the end of 1995, US gold reserves are identical in the two sources. Differences began to emerge in 1996, consistent with GATA's claim that the suppression of the gold price began in the mid-1990s.
− The differences between US gold reserves and US gold reserves including the ESF are likely to represent either long or short positions in gold taken by the ESF and, therefore, may suggest intervention in the gold market.
James Turk concludes that there was a disconnect within the Fed/US Government; i.e. that: "…one arm of the government at a very low level was reporting events that other people at higher levels in another arm of the government were denying ever happened".

5
"In a lawsuit filed in December 2001 by Reginald H. Howe versus Bank for International Settlements, Alan Greenspan et al, it was alleged that "according to reliable reports received by the plaintiffs…", Sir Edward George, Governor of the Bank of England, made the following comment to Nicholas J. Morrell, Chief Executive of Lonmin plc in the aftermath of the Washington Agreement:
"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. ;) A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the UK."

[Guest]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

Good solid stuff Hellstan. This was also covered back in September - here:

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...48440#poststop

[Down Under]

Re: Gold forbidden in Europe ?

He said the COMEX is trading paper, not bullion and it is distorting the market. He said he had clients waiting to get bullion and there was no delivery date from their Precious Metals department. He said no one is selling and if you don't have sellers you don't have product. He then asked if I would be interested in selling my bullion.


Ironlady

Ironlady, thanks for the update from Canada. It definitely appears that there is a serious disconnect between paper gold (Comex) and physical. Jim Sinclair, jsmineset.com, is encouraging people to take delivery from the Comex to bring the charade to an end.

Whether Sinclair is successful or not, I think it's only a matter of time before the paper gold game is broken.