I had some old notes from the Gordon Brown Gold sales as I was just starting to get really interested in Gold back in 1999 and 2002. In fact I was so convinced that Gordon Brown’s final sale in 2002 was so wrong that I thought 2002 was as good a time as any to start my own accumulation.
From my old notes Gordon Brown sold some 395 Tonnes of Gold over 17 three monthly auctions, well and truly telegraphed to the market to guarantee the lowest price possible for reasons best known to Gordon. Bless him. The 395 Tonnes was around 58% of their total Gold reserves of 715 Tonnes; however, I notice those number just don’t add up but am sure my notes are correct from a UK news report at the time. If they did have 715 Tonnes after the sales they could still have some 320 Tonnes left.
I remember a couple of pictures of Betty Windsor walking through the bank of England’s Gold vault in the Telegraph and in the second picture if she was not standing on a wooden box the stacks of Gold bars were certainly not as high as in the first picture I recall.
I was also once in Birmingham buying up a few Gold Britannia’s as is my wont. I’m not sure if this means much but the later coins are 99.99% pure Gold and not alloyed at all. When I asked the guy in the bullion house I was using why this was as they would be far too soft for circulation; I was told that if the government or the mint ever wished to recall these coins they would only require melting into bars of bullion saving the costs of refining out any alloyed metal. I recall thinking at the time that was an interesting fact to store away for future use. However, I admit this is the first time I have shared that information. It may mean something one day but for now my store of UK Gold coins remain safely stored away.
I have mentioned this before but the wealthy Poms always leave themselves a nice little Tax loophole as they know the common man is not supposed to be able to buy and hold Gold. The Britannia and the sovereign being currency they have no VAT or Capital Gains Tax on them.
