# Where can I buy a gold brick and how much will cost me? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 9, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269 "2005-02-09T20:38:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![aeropl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f05b48/32.png) [@aeropl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aeropl)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/21 "2005-02-10T18:20:14Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > The OP was on about getting obtaining a gold brick but I think in the United States that is illegal. Nope, it’s perfectly legal to possess gold bars today, although it was illegal from 1933 to 1975. The scary part is that the government can confiscate gold again anytime during a state of emergency because of the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. ---
**Author:** ![slinkydink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@slinkydink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slinkydink)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/22 "2005-02-10T18:32:17Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Over thirty years ago I read an article about the world’s largest gold repository – not Ft. Knox, but the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. [snip] The vault’s floor was oak and would need to be replaced every five years or so (those trucks were heavy). The old floor would be ripped up and burrned; enough gold would be recovered to pay for the replacement. > > DD I was there a couple of years ago, neat place. My memory is not 100%, but I’m almost positive that the floor of the vault was cut directly into the bedrock of Manhattan. This was both for practical reasons (as you said those trucks were heavy) and for security reasons. ---
**Author:** ![FlippyFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FlippyFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlippyFly)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2005, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/23 "2005-02-10T19:00:39Z")
> [@DougC](#): > > - So let me get this straight: you order a bar of gold, there’s a transportation charge, that I understand. And if you want them to store it for you, there’s a storage charge, that too I can see. But if you _don’t_ want them to store it, you have to _pay more money_ to get it from them? What a crock of sh!t. > ~ Hey it’s not rare. Picture this: you buy some stock on E_Trade for a comission (delivery charge). E_Trade will then charge you if you don’t make any active trades (like a storage charge) and they will charge you if you want to get the stock certificate back (transfer fee). ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/24 "2005-02-11T00:00:02Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > I got it from [these folks](http://www.element-collection.com/html/samples.html) [eBay store](http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ50QQsassZrgbco). It looks like they don’t have any at the moment. > > I’d love to get one of [these](http://www.tungstenspheres.com/index.html), but I’m afraid to ask the cost! Wow, what fun things they seem to have there! Maybe you could get a kilo of beryllium, and a lab balance, and put the large, low-sp. gr. Be on one side and the small, high sp.-gr. tungsten on the other. That’d be an interesting display. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/25 "2005-02-11T00:13:24Z")
For my birthday party/trivia contest two years ago, one of the questions was “if you had a sphere of solid gold whose radius was the distance from the earth to the sun, and you calculated its value in dollars, and rounded it off to the nearest power of 10, how many zeroes would be on the end of that number?” Sadly, I’ve now forgotten the number. But it was quite large. ---
**Author:** ![inkleberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f17d59/32.png) [@inkleberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkleberry)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/26 "2005-02-11T00:34:07Z")
> [@aeropl](#): > > Also, a million dollars worth of gold would weigh 159 lbs. and make a bar 12"x6"x3" (approx). So that’s what my weight in gold would be…Hmmm… Yeah, I could live with that kind of cash… ---
**Author:** ![inkleberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f17d59/32.png) [@inkleberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkleberry)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/27 "2005-02-11T00:35:40Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > For my birthday party/trivia contest two years ago, one of the questions was “if you had a sphere of solid gold whose radius was the distance from the earth to the sun, and you calculated its value in dollars, and rounded it off to the nearest power of 10, how many zeroes would be on the end of that number?” Questions like this are precisely why there should be drinking allowed and even encouraged at your parties. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/28 "2005-02-11T03:26:54Z")
> [@inkleberry](#): > > Questions like this are precisely why there should be drinking allowed and even encouraged at your parties. Does sound like one of your geekier parties, don’t it? But what the heck. Astronomical unit: 149 598 000 000m = 1.49598 \* 10[sup]11[/sup] Volume of a sphere: 4/3 pi r[sup]3[/sup] 4/3 pi (1.49598 \* 10[sup]11[/sup])[sup]3[/sup] = 1.4 \* 10[sup]34[/sup] Density of gold = 19.3 g/cc = 193,000,000 g/m[sup]3[/sup] = 1.93 \* 10[sup]8[/sup] g/m[sup]3[/sup] Total mass of the sphere = 1.93 \* 10[sup]8[/sup] g/m[sup]3[/sup] \* 1.4 \* 10[sup]34[/sup] m[sup]3[/sup] = 2.7 \* 10[sup]42[/sup] g A recent price for gold is $13.44 USD/g, so the sphere’s value at that price is $3.63 \* 10[sup]43[/sup] As for how many zeroes come after the answer, that depends on how precise your math is. I’ve been rounding to beat the band and probably made a mistake along the way. ---
**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/29 "2005-02-11T03:56:58Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > I got it from [these folks](http://www.element-collection.com/html/samples.html) [eBay store](http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ50QQsassZrgbco). It looks like they don’t have any at the moment. > > I’d love to get one of [these](http://www.tungstenspheres.com/index.html), but I’m afraid to ask the cost! Im no metallurgist, but when I was a teenager I worked in a pump shop for oil rigs. We had tungsten carbide balls just like that, and they were technically “perfectly round” and hollow. They were used on the end of pipe’s somewhere within the oil pump to maintain suction, and we sent them back to be reforged into new “perfectly round” balls every once in a while. They ranged in size from marbles to half of a bowling ball, and I recall the cost being 20-100 dollars for each one. They were extremely strong and, in my memory, equally bouncy as a same-sized rubber ball (if not moreso, I think they went higher but wouldn’t continue bouncing for as long). One time our dog, Shasta, was making a jingling sound as she ran around. We took her to the vet and she had six of these in her stomach that she had eaten of the ground at the shop! 😉 Anyway, you can get one of these used for really cheap, if not free, by finding a local pump shop. ---
**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/30 "2005-02-11T04:06:22Z")
please disregard my spelling, punctuation, and grammar. that’s several glasses of wine talking 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![inkleberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f17d59/32.png) [@inkleberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkleberry)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/31 "2005-02-11T05:35:56Z")
Um, I’ve actually been to Max’s parties. They are, in fact, very geeky. And sadly, nonalcoholic. Everything goes better with vodka, I say. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/32 "2005-02-11T06:44:07Z")
> [@](#): > > For my birthday party/trivia contest two years ago, one of the questions was “if you had a sphere of solid gold whose radius was the distance from the earth to the sun, and you calculated its value in dollars, and rounded it off to the nearest power of 10, how many zeroes would be on the end of that number?” You realize that would be a black hole, right? The value of a black hole is largely independent of its size. The only advantage to having a larger one is that you get a higher Eddington limit, but one that large would easily be large enough to meet the power needs of any Type III civilization (much less a less-than-Type I like us). So I would estimate the value of that sphere as being equal to the sum of the values of all of the power plants in the world and all of the uranium and fossil fuel reserves (since those represent all of the power we can use). ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/33 "2005-02-11T11:13:38Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > I keep a kilogram of tungsten on my desk. It is practically the same density as gold and is about the size of a D-cell battery. I had one visitor pick it up and he swore it had to be a magnet that was attracted to the (non-metal) desk because it was so hard to lift for its size. The fact that it remained heavy when held in his hand away from the desk didn’t seem to register with him. Not a physics major 🙂 Huh. I happen to keep a 623g wedge of Tungsten on my desk, and I get similar surprised reactions. You definitely wouldn’t want to drop it on your foot. It’s got some sharp corners. Those tungsten spheres definitely look cool. ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/34 "2005-02-11T15:36:20Z")
The best place to buy gold (just holding the paper) is said to be the Perth MInt. Least red tape, etc. ---
**Author:** ![alterego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/35 "2005-02-11T17:18:56Z")
> [@](#): > > The best place to buy gold (just holding the paper) is said to be the Perth MInt. I dunno, it was pretty cheap and easy to get ahold of in Mina Sulman, Bahrain 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269/36 "2005-02-12T02:31:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You realize that would be a black hole, right? The value of a black hole is largely independent of its size. The only advantage to having a larger one is that you get a higher Eddington limit, but one that large would easily be large enough to meet the power needs of any Type III civilization (much less a less-than-Type I like us). So I would estimate the value of that sphere as being equal to the sum of the values of all of the power plants in the world and all of the uranium and fossil fuel reserves (since those represent all of the power we can use). If you had been at my party and given that answer, I would have awarded you partial or complete credit. (By the way, the way the question worked was that 8 or so teams were asked it simultaneously, and the ones who got closest to the right answer were awarded points. No one was expected it to get it dead on, with no reference materials, in 30 seconds.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-buy-a-gold-brick-and-how-much-will-cost-me/289269.md?page=1)