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Markets · 8 August 2026

Moving Bullion: The Logistics Nobody Prices

…e. · Physical gold moves mostly as belly cargo on scheduled passenger flights, which ties bullion logistics to airline capacity. · Bar formats differ between markets — 400 oz in London, kilobars in Asia — so relocating metal often means re-casting it, not just flying it. · When f…

Ingrid Sørensen · 17 min read

Markets · 2 August 2026

Who Actually Sets the Gold Price

…or 400-ounce bars that never leave a vault. A retail coin adds refining, minting, insured transport, dealer inventory cost, VAT or sales tax where applicable, and a margin. On small denominations that stack can be a double-digit percentage of the metal value. · What is the EFP an…

Ingrid Sørensen · 15 min read

Markets · 6 August 2026

Why Central Banks Started Buying Gold Again

For three decades official institutions were net sellers of bullion, and the policy consensus treated the metal as a museum piece. Then, quietly, the world's reserve managers reversed. The reasons are less about inflation than about the plumbing of s…

Ingrid Sørensen · 17 min read

Science · 8 August 2026

The Metal That Went Medical

…old-coloured, stops being inert in the way you expect, and starts doing work in places no bullion bar could reach — including the test strip that told you whether you had a virus. · Gold nanoparticles are red because collective electron oscillations — surface plasmons — absorb gr…

Amara Okonjo · 15 min read

Policies · 6 August 2026

Financial Disclaimer

…a long-run store of value and a poor short-run investment simultaneously. · No cash flow: bullion pays no coupon and no dividend. Its return depends wholly on the price another buyer will pay, and holding it carries storage, insurance and opportunity costs. · Currency effects: go…

Markets · 20 June 2026

Bring It Home: Central Banks and the Great Gold Repatriation

…t the Bank of England or the New York Fed could be lent, swapped or sold without physical transport, and during the Cold War it was safer outside the likely path of an invasion. · What does 'loco London' mean? It designates gold held in accredited London vaults, the default locat…

Ingrid Sørensen · 13 min read

Industry · 6 August 2026

The Scrap Trade

…is priced off spot, adjusted for assayed fineness, then discounted for testing, refining, transport and each intermediary's margin. · High-street payouts commonly land well below spot for the contained gold; specialist refiners buying in volume pay far closer to it. · Handheld XR…

Ingrid Sørensen · 15 min read

Industry · 7 August 2026

How Fake Gold Is Detected

…gold ±0.01 mm Dimensional tolerance a modern mint holds · Coins are a different problem · Bullion coins are, counter-intuitively, harder to counterfeit convincingly than bars, and the reason is manufacturing tolerance. A sovereign mint strikes to specifications published to a hun…

Tomas Herrera · 15 min read

Industry · 7 August 2026

After the Cyanide

…was the International Cyanide Management Code, a voluntary certification scheme covering transport, storage, dosing, monitoring and decommissioning, audited by third parties. Voluntary schemes have obvious limits, but the Code did standardise practice at signatory operations in…

Tomas Herrera · 17 min read

Craft · 22 July 2026

Hallmarks and Assay: How Anyone Proves Gold Is Gold

…e. Ultrasonic thickness: detects internal voids and inserts in bars, which is why serious bullion desks own one. Fire assay: destructive, definitive, and the only method that ends an argument. · The erosion nobody advertises · Hallmarking's authority depends on a chain: compulsor…

Yusuf Demir · 12 min read

Industry · 2 July 2026

Nine Nines: Inside a Modern Gold Refinery

…n. Assurance therefore has to travel as paperwork alongside the metal: mine certificates, transport records, counterparty due diligence and audit. Refiners now maintain compliance teams comparable in size to their metallurgical staff. · Recycling, which is most of the business ·…

Tomas Herrera · 12 min read

History · 9 August 2026

The Hoard Problem: What Buried Gold Actually Tells Us

…agazine about gold · Hoards are the deepest available data on how societies actually held bullion before there were institutions to hold it for them. Read carefully, they tell us about denomination structure, about how far coins travelled, about the relationship between object we…

Marguerite Adler · 16 min read

Mining · 22 May 2026

The Other Supply Chain: Artisanal Mining and the Mercury Problem

…d to tailings already contaminated with mercury, it can mobilise that mercury into a more transportable form. · Gravity first: it is the only intervention with no toxic downside and immediate revenue benefit. Retorts as a bridge: a simple condenser recaptures much of the mercury…

Amara Okonjo · 12 min read

Industry · 28 July 2026

Urban Mining: The Richest Gold Ore on Earth Is in Your Old Phone

…d in a single handset is worth a small fraction of what it costs to individually collect, transport, store and manually disassemble that handset. Value appears only at scale and only when the whole device is treated as a bundle of materials — copper, palladium, silver, tin, alumi…

Tomas Herrera · 13 min read

Mining · 5 August 2026

Grade, Cut-off and the Arithmetic of an Open Pit

A gold mine is not a hole with gold in it. It is a spreadsheet with a hole attached — and the single number that decides which rock is ore and which rock is waste moves every time the price does. · Mo…

Amara Okonjo · 16 min read

Craft · 5 June 2026

The Alchemy of Craft: What Goldsmiths Know That Machines Don't

Gold's working properties are so extreme they border on the absurd — one gram drawn into three kilometres of wire. Inside a trade where the tools have barely changed and the hands are irreplaceable. ·…

Yusuf Demir · 11 min read

Industry · 4 August 2026

The Gold Inside Your Phone

Industrial demand is the quietest third of the gold market: a few tenths of a gram per handset, multiplied by billions of devices, chosen not for prestige but because nothing else conducts as reliably…

Tomas Herrera · 15 min read

History · 14 July 2026

The Gold Standard: How a Soft Yellow Metal Became Money

For roughly five thousand years, humanity kept returning to the same element to settle its debts. The story is less about greed than about the unusually boring chemistry of atomic number 79. · Gold's…

Marguerite Adler · 14 min read

Science · 9 August 2026

The Metallurgy of Karat

Pure gold is too soft to hold a stone, too soft to hold an edge, and the wrong colour for half the world's taste. Almost everything you own that is gold is a designed alloy — and the design is where t…

Tomas Herrera · 16 min read

Craft · 3 August 2026

The Wedding-Season Bid: How Jewellery Demand Sets the Floor

Half the world's gold is worn, not stored. In India and China that distinction barely exists — and the buying behaviour it produces is the most reliably contrarian force in the entire market. · Jewell…

Yusuf Demir · 16 min read

Science · 10 August 2026

Where Gold Actually Comes From

Every gram of gold on Earth was manufactured in an astrophysical catastrophe, arrived here after the planet had already formed, and was then concentrated by hot water. Three separate accidents, none o…

Tomas Herrera · 18 min read

Policies · 6 August 2026

Editorial Standards & Corrections

…o that there is as little to disclose as possible. Whistleblowers in refining, mining and bullion banking are encouraged to make contact through channels they control, from equipment that is not their employer's. · Practically, that means we keep contact records apart from publis…

Policies · 6 August 2026

Terms of Use

…s beyond the sum invested, mining equities carry operational and jurisdictional risk that bullion does not, and past performance is never a reliable indicator of future results. Take independent, regulated advice before acting. · 6. Accuracy and availability · We report carefully…