ABU DHABI (AFP) – There’s no mistaking what’s in this vending machine. The well-heeled in the Gulf can now grab “gold to go“ from a hotel lobby in the United Arab Emirates, when the need for a quick ingot strikes.
On Thursday, a day after its inauguration, the shiny machine attracted spectators of many different nationalities who gathered to watch whenever an enthusiast was struck with the urge to splurge on a bar of the precious metal.
Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace Hotel became the first place outside Germany to install “gold to go, the world’s first gold vending machine,” said a statement from Ex Oriente Lux AG, the German company behind the vending machine. “In addition to one-gram, five-gram and 10-gram bars of gold, the machine also dispenses gold coins,” it added. Gold rates are constantly updated inside the shiny machine — itself gold-plated — in the hotel’s lobby, courtesy of a built-in computer connected to a dealer which sells gold online.
“This eliminates the risk premiums usually associated with precious metal trading,” the German company said. Hotel general manager Hans Olbertz said they wanted the hotel to be the first in the world to offer guests what he called “this golden service.”
So, I wonder if it will buy gold from you as well.
Something needs to be said about the lower 99.999% of people on this planet losing the class war, but right now, I’m drawing a blank.
Commodities exchange gives me the image of Neanderthals exchanging sea shells for elk horns. I’m just not sophisticated enough to understand world economics.
>>On Thursday, a day after its inauguration, the shiny machine attracted spectators of >>many different nationalities who gathered to watch whenever an enthusiast was >>struck with the urge to splurge on a bar of the precious metal.
Who then shot the unlucky victims and stole their gold.. :))
buying gold not something i’d wanna do in public..
Looking at a 10 year gold chart is depressing. A 305% increase in value. Annual return of 14%.
Anybody this (publicity) is just a trolling against the struggling working middle class around the globe?
Very Dubai. A gold smuggling centre to India and Arabia for centuries. Anyone wanting to launder dirty money, is channelling their ill-gotten into certified bullion.
A valid concern. Do you really think your gold ETF is really backed by…well actual gold?
A one gram “bar” of gold?
# 7 Animby:
“A one gram “bar” of gold?”
Since a dime masses 2.268g, and gold is about 2.16 times as dense as the copper that makes up most of a dime, 1g of gold would be 1/4.896 or about 1/5 the size of a dime. More like a paint chip than a “bar.”
I am saddened a little every time I see the price of gold go up, because it means the dollar is worth that much less. A good friend remarked to me in about 1980 that in the 1800s a $20 gold piece would buy a Colt revolver (he named a specific model, but I don’t remember it); and today (1980), it still would. I suppose today (2010) it still would as well…
One thing has kept me from investing in gold. The difference in the cost I would have to pay for it and anything I could expect to get when I sell it.
You are RICH IF’
You can afford a new car once per month or when it gets dirty.
Your day at work is deciding WHICH golf course to goto today.
Pocket change can buy you ANYTHING.
You dont change your underwear each day, you BUY NEW EACH day.
You worry more about your MONEY then your kids.
You have a contract for SEX/marriage/kids..
2/3rds of your employee dont know WHO you are, what you look like.
When cutting wages you NEVER think about your own.
You dont worry about things at work, you have 20 OTHER employees that do that. AND you dont know what they are doing. OR CARE.
BILLS? what bills? Making ends meet, isnt a concern. Deciding which car to drive is more of a problem, or should you take the Plane/chopper to work.
Vacation? wheres my Jet.
Cost of food? I dont buy any, its gotten for me and Cooked for me.