Bringing gold coins to Thailand

[Regyai 417]

As this thread seems set to do more laps than an Indie 500

 

The semantics about what is and what isn't bullion and what is OK and what isnt are all well and good. That is until Aspiring Vice Admiral Somdet of the Thai Customs Service claps eyes on it then as the 1K THB bills stack up in his avaricious little mind it will be what HE DECIDES to be right or wrong n'est pas and all your cutesy protestations ain't going to change that. (FFS Ive seen them seize and subsequently take payment of the alleged 'Tax' for what was decreed to be a 'commercial' amount of kiddies sweets (candies)!!!)

 

Which arrives right back to what I said earlier - Buy the stuff in country, Gold is gold (in whatever purity) & the spot price is the spot price Thai gold is unilaterally accepted & traded within Thailand without question.

 

If the OP is as he said just looking to make a l'ill stash then transfer money over and buy here in Thailand without any of the attendant worries outlined in this thread. If however the motive includes a little circumvention of money laundering / cash restrictions, well welcome to reality its illegal and thus always bears a little adrenaline rush - but a few Pandas in your pocket will always be more comforting than a great big building block of folding stuff in your cabin bag

 

 

 

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Edited October 26, 2011 by Regyai

[lovedog100 1,372]

Like most other US gold coins this is not 24K.

 

Those that are:

 

Canada Maple Leaf

Krugerrands

Pandas

 

All are 1 troy oz. bullion coins, of .999 or .9999 pure. And the Canada maple sells at a lower premium over spot sometimes by quite a bit.

 

The US gold coin is .9675 oz. of gold in a 22K mix like Thai baht gold.

Krugerrands are 22k, not 24k. The price over spot doesn't matter that much, what matters more is the difference between buy and sell prices. I bought Maple Leaf's because the were 24k and they had the smallest difference between buy and sell prices. At the time it was $43, now it looks like all the coins have a difference of about $80. For investment purposes it doesn't matter much if you buy the eagle at today's price of $1803 or the Maple Leaf at $1784 when you sell the Eagle you lose $82 and selling the Maple Leaf you lose $81 That difference is only .0005%

 

I will agree to the premise that the Maple Leaf should be the better investment because of the 22k and 24k difference. You would be paying less and getting more gold. In the west, it doesn't seem to make much difference, considering the 22k coin sells for more. The OP was asking about bringing to Thailand, I would think that the Maple Leaf would be worth more here, but I don't know that to be true. I haven't found anyplace in Thailand that buys and sells coins. Nor have I gone to a gold shop to see if they would pay any difference between one coin and the other. In the gold shops I have been in, I looked, but have never seen a gold coin in one. It's doubtful that a shop owner would know the difference between one, and the other, but maybe. Today's gold price in Thailand for 1 baht of 23k gold is 24850 Baht per Baht weight, which is 1/2 an ounce. Double that to make an ounce, the divide by 30 for $ conversion and one ounce here would be $1656 USD or $128 less than the Maple Leaf would be worth in the states. Not counting the buy and sell rates. The buy sell rate is much less in Thailand at about 200 Baht or $6.66 per ounce. http://www.goldpricethai.com/

 

While we determined that gold bars would be illegal to bring in. A 1 ounce perth mint gold bar would be $1766 in the states and sold here there would be a difference of $110. While Thai gold is 23k, Gold bars in 24k are available with some looking. I would think that that extra 1k would make a difference in price, but have no concrete evidence of that. While I wouldn't want to get caught smuggling, if I had to pay the US price for a coin, or bar, I would rather have the gold bar in Thailand.

 

The OP never said what he was trying to achieve by bringing gold into Thailand. If he were trying to bring in money without going through the banking system, then gold coins may be a good investment. If he just wanted to save the $43 wire transfer fee, then it wouldn't. Maybe he just wants to save space in his pocket, $10,000 in $100 bills would take up a lot of space in his pockets, where $10,000 in gold would fit in a coin pocket.

Edited October 26, 2011 by lovedog100

[joekicker 53]

In the gold shops I have been in, I looked, but have never seen a gold coin in one. It's doubtful that a shop owner would know the difference between one, and the other, but maybe. Today's gold price in Thailand for 1 baht of 23k gold is 24850 Baht per Baht weight, which is 1/2 an ounce.

 

This is the other error here. It's not doubtful, it's certain - because the shop owner doesn't care. He wants to know how much gold there is in that thing you're handing him. He doesn't care what it looks like, where it came from, how much work went into it, what some coin dealer will pay. He will give you what the GOLD is worth on the Thai market. Period.

 

While I wouldn't want to get caught smuggling, if I had to pay the US price for a coin, or bar, I would rather have the gold bar in Thailand.

 

"Thai gold" meaning the colour and look and feel of it, is worth more here than, say "Hong Kong" or "US gold". That's another thing to consider. You'll get a bit less if it looks like "Chinese gold" - all bright and glittery - than the duller look the Thais favour, say. That Yurpeen or Perth bar would have to be "dirtied up" to get top baht - although it's only a matter of a few hundred, probably.

 

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