What to buy in Oman?

Ivrytwr3

Hey all,

I am not sure if i am on the right board, but i have a question!

I am off to Oman in January for a few weeks and a few people have mentioned i should buy some gold to re sell upon my return to the UK.

Does anyone agree with this? DOes anyone know Oman who can advise on the best way to do this and where to buy it from/sell etc?

Ta!

grey_gym_sock

is gold cheaper in oman than the UK? i thought there was basically a world price. and if there's just a small difference in price, that would probably be wiped out by the retail markup.

ColdIron

If it's anything like Thailand or Dubai you can buy gold jewelry at very little markup from the daily fix as labour rates are low so the 'workmanship' is almost incidental. It isn't cheap gold but cheap jewelry

If you're buying coins or bullion it'll be the same price worldwide, if it's cheaper it's not gold

Coins and bullion are exempt from VAT and duty/excise, but I'd check about non-investment gold

DiggerUK

Ivrytwr3,
I'm a huge fan of gold for long term saving, but your post makes me think you are looking for the next 'get rich quick scheme'.

Gold is as dangerous as any other commodity for short term speculation, and you don't appear to know how golds price is arrived at.

I suggest you do a bit more research before you go leaping in to something you're not up to speed on.
..._

lazer

I could be wrong but I think gold is sold by weight in the middle east

This means 9ct gold costs the same as 22ct gold and yet the 22ct gold is worth much more at home

sabretoothtigger

Very improbable they would ignore impurities in the gold, they arent dull. If anything they know the trade much better then most people here

Anything below 22ct is not investment grade gold, you will have more trouble when selling vs spot

To answer the OP you should not buy on holiday to sell on return. Buy if you want to hold it a year or so, gold for selling in a week can be bought via a fund so Oman is just for physical long term buyers.

If you are a jeweller or know one or buying 100k it might be you can do some special deal but I presume not

UK charges no VAT on gold ? The point about it being about jewellery and cheaper labour sounds right

steady__eddie

I spent some time in Oman in the early '70s "Helping to spread democracy". The south of the country was pretty under developed and made modern day Tipton resemble silicon valley.
The locals shared a distrust of paper money and instead prefered to use gold, funny how things turn full circle isn't it ? The basic unit of currency was the British sovereign but the majority of these were counterfeit. I was informed however that this was not the sting in the tale, it would appear that the gold content used in the counterfeit coins was higher than that used in the genuine coins ! Gold bars were also readily available.
I assume that nowadays, the emergence of a stable economy and government may well have eradicated the aforementioned way of life.
I would be interested to hear how you get on in your travels upon your return.

Lookthevan

Numismatics and semi-numismatics are usually referring to as gold and silver coins or bars that have perceived value greater than that of their metal content, usually due to them being old or rare.

I have very strong views on this. I will say right now that I am fascinated by monetary history and seeing old forms of money used through out the ages, but not at all interested in collecting numismatics if they are valued higher than the price of another piece of silver at the present time you are buying. I am only interested in the amount of monetary precious metal. If for instance there are two 1 ounce rounds for sale and one was a semi numbie (maybe a rare or old coin) and one was say a US silver Eagle minted this year, if they were the same price (the current price of 1oz silver at that time) then of course I would go for the semi numismatic. But almost certainly the seller would want a bit more for the older rare coin. If that was the case then I would choose the new silver eagle because I am only interested in getting the most amount of grams of PM for my fiat currency as I can. Maybe I could buy several silver Eagles for the same price as 1 numismatic silver coin.

The other thing to bear in mind, there are unscrupulous ones particularly in China but I must not say only there, who are minting numismatics out of real gold and silver and its nigh on impossible to tell if they really are a real genuine piece hundreds of years old or a recently minted replica. All you can tell easily is the metal content, if its pure silver or not which these replicas are pure PM made to look exactly like an old piece.


In my view grams of silver are all worth the same when they are melted down to be used in industry or medical uses or something. But I am also interested in smaller the better units of silver. For instance if you are only interested in getting the most grams of silver per unit of fiat currency then your best bet is the big 1000 troy ounce bars they are over 31KG. This works out very cheap per gram of silver if you can afford it. But the disadvantage is you can not sell part of it at a time or use part of it to buy something when the present temporary currency system fails.

This is why I like one ounce rounds or bars, or if it works out cheaper per gram of silver maybe some slightly bigger bars, I like the 100 gram bars they sometimes can be bought for the around the same price as three 1 ounce rounds which only works out to be around 93 grams. So the 100gram bars work out better value and are still small enough to be used as money when the time comes. Also consider the nicer looking and especially the better known they are the easier it will be to use them to buy things with in the future. If its a scruffy piece or mintage marks not well known then I will stay away from it unless its very cheap per gram. You must check the purity of your silver as soon as you get it. If its not pure return it for a refund and buy pure silver.

The main ways to test the purity is first of all weighing it and measuring it. This is why I like the US silver Eagle and the Canadian maple leaf silver bullion coins. They are almost impossible to fake and pass these tests. They should weigh exactly 31.1 grams which is one troy ounce. You can look up the official measurements online of whichever piece of silver you are buying. There are other ways to test your silver there is the acid test but this only tests the surface it could be silver coated. So there is an even better way to test silver. Not many people know that silver is very slightly magnetic. Not enough for a normal magnet to affect it, but a very powerful rare Earth magnet will have a slight pull on pure silver. There is a wealth of info online with videos of real silver bars and coins lifted up on a 45degree angle and a rare Earth magnet slides down very slowly because of the magnetic pull. There was a large silver bar that had been professionally drilled and filled with lead, you could not tell from the outside and it passed the weighing and measuring tests. But the magnet slides off very easily with not much magnetic pull. This is why I try and buy the most grams of silver possible but in the smallest forms as possible because its not worth drilling and filling smaller pieces at these low silver prices. Maybe in the future when the manipulation has ended and silver has revalued to its true value this may be a problem with smaller pieces of silver too. So its worth getting a rare Earth magnet and getting familiar with pure silver bullion.

So as a general rule I always try to get the most grams of silver in the nicest looking most well known but smallest possible piece of silver I can for the amount of units of currency, and I do not care for buying numismatics unless they are priced the same as a non numismatic silver piece.

Do not get me wrong I love numismatic coins. Japanese and other Asian money went through the same monetary cycles as the rest of the world over the ages. They went from using money gold and silver to using currency anything other than gold and silver then back again to money. Some of the money used was a cross between a coin and a bar. They are silver pieces that look like, well can you imagine taking a silver coin and somehow stretching it, so it looks like a long elongated oval. They can just be referred to as silver ingots, some still call them coins some call them bars.

Some are calling for the Japanese and other Asian nations to go back to money instead of currency. I love the saying a trillion here a trillion there pretty soon you are going to be talking about real money. Well the Japanese central bank is like the rest of the central banks creating trillions of units of fiat currency every month at the time of writing this. If they were the first to go back to honest money again instead of currency then that would stand them in a very good stead to weather the perfect economic storm heading our way. Japan could buy ALL remaining ounces of silver in worldwide stockpiles with about 2 weeks worth or created currency. I mean if creating a few trillion units of currency and adding it to supply was a good thing then why not create 100's of trillions of units and give everyone say a million units of currency? This is how Ben Burnake got his nick name helicopter Ben. He could create trillions of units of currency and drop them out of helicopters it may come to that just before this temporary currency system ends.

I love to look in museums around the world at what was used as money in different parts of the world throughout the millenniums. As I have already said many things have been used as a medium of exchange but only gold and silver are money in and of themselves everything else is just currency. But this is the first time in history that currency has been digital, now they can create trillions of units of currency just by typing it into their bank accounts and then spending it electronically. They used to have to get bit of animal skin and paint of them, now its trillions of units of currency not worth the paper they are not printed on.

atush

Gold is gold and the same price everywhere. If you want to sell jewelry it might be worth it (if you can sell like jewelers do with a mark up) as there is little mark up over there.

But you wont' make anything on gold itself (unless the price goes up on your return).

I have bought gold jewelry abroad in places like these, but only for wearing- not as an investment as it is cheaper there than here. Used to be quite a bit cheaper in Italy as well

cashbackproblems

lazer wrote: »

I could be wrong but I think gold is sold by weight in the middle east

This means 9ct gold costs the same as 22ct gold and yet the 22ct gold is worth much more at home

Yep iv bought alot of jewellery from Dubai and its done on weight*gold price of the day + Labour and its the labour bit you can haggle on. Mostly 5% is the norm but for foreigners who are clueless they will mark this up considerably. Gold is also 22ct/24ct not the cheap 9ct we have in this country so is of more value.

However from what i hear jewellery prices have gone up by a bit in dubai.

As mentioned the savings on Gold coins will be marginal as many UK sites only charge £20-30 markup for a 1/4 sovereign.

shaun_from_Africa

cashbackproblems wrote: »

As mentioned the savings on Gold coins will be marginal as many UK sites only charge £20-30 markup for a 1/4 sovereign.

"Only" a £20 or £30 markup on a 1/4 Sovereign!

That's one hell of a markup if you are paying a £20 or £30 premium for less than £61 worth of gold at the current price, ( a 1/4 Sov is 2 grams of 22 carat gold) which is why the smaller coins aren't realy viable as an investment medium.