Trying to identify odd-weight gold bar
CaptHenway
Posts: 32,140 ✭✭✭✭✭
My former employers were offered a modern J-M four nines gold bar that is marked as 11.268 grams. Thought it might have been a One Tola equivalent, but it is a bit too light for that. Anybody know what it might be the equivalent of?
Thanks,
TD
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
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Here's one that just sold for $644
"Interest rates, the price of money, are the most important market. And, perversely, they’re the market that’s most manipulated by the Fed." - Doug Casey
The very one. But what is the purpose of the oddball weight?
Interesting !!!
End of the day casting??
Cheers, RickO
This is a 1/3 tola bar.
pretty neat and interesting bar.
Many members on this forum that now it cannot fit in my signature. Please ask for entire list.
a tola is a unit of measurement equal to 11.663 grams. OP's bar weighs 11.268.
"Interest rates, the price of money, are the most important market. And, perversely, they’re the market that’s most manipulated by the Fed." - Doug Casey
Here is a handy chart giving weights for Tolas and Taels and other things:
http://www.goldbarsworldwide.com/PDF/BI_3_GoldConversionTables.pdf
Anyone? Class? Bueller?
Just a thought: There were actually different "tola" weights based on location. The most common tola is probably the Indian tola, at 11.6638 grams. But there was also apparently a Pakistani tola at 12.5 grams.
Given the age of this piece, and the geopolitical ramifications (I'm thinking ARAMCO-type need), I wonder if it's possible this was minted specifically for another region where this would have been a common weight. Or maybe, it was the amount of pure gold needed to serve as the base for whatever purity that region's tola- (or other weight) coin would equal once completed? 11.268 grams of gold plus 11% copper or silver would equal that Pakistani tola, within a thousandth of a gram, if my math is correct.
--Severian the Lame
Did I mention I think that little bar is SWEET?!
I don't know when this bar was made/issued (other than being modern era as indicated by the four nines).
But if gold was $1,380 per troy oz then this bar would be worth right at $500.
And the next day it wouldn't be, so I doubt if that was the reason for the weight.
I am thinking it was some regional version of a Tola. Maybe an Un-Tola?
Let me be the one to say "ugh" to that!!!
Bump for the watcher.
Still no idea what it was issued for,
Could it be a simple answer? Maybe they poured the bars to fill the molds, weighed them and stamped them with their actual weight in grams. No extra effort for detailed pours or filing to get every bar some same equivalent weight.
My US Mint Commemorative Medal Set
This is a real possibility. After pouring several bars, the refinery had a little melted gold left over so they poured it into their smallest mold and then marked it with its actual weight.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
I wish that we still had the picture.
Maybe somebody sent some gold to be refined with the stipulation that the refined gold be returned to him marked with fineness and weight. I dunno. Just guessing.
When my first wife died I took all of her gold jewelry (and she had a lot, what with being married to a coin dealer and all) and scrapped it rather than having somebody else wearing it. Imagine it I had had the recovered gold cast into an ingot and returned to me.
What one looks like from a quick google search…
The "11.268" marking is part of the stamping die. Since the die takes considerable effort to manufacture, this would not be how "end of day" or leftover gold would be marked. If the weight was counter-stamped using a character set, I might agree that it was a leftover. But the weight is an integral part of this die.
11.268 grams of 999 gold is almost exactly the same gold content as three traditional USA Quarter Eagles coins, or one Half Eagle plus one Quarter Eagle, or five Gold Dollars plus one Quarter Eagle, or 3/8 of a Double Eagle. In other words, $7.50 face value of traditional USA .900 fine gold coins.
That might explain "what".
But it still does not explain "why".
Definitely an intended exact weight of something, but what?
If you google "11.268 grams" you will find sales of a few more of these, but no explanation as to what they represent. Has anybody googles J-M's website?
This is a true mystery. I searched all kinds of old links to JM and checked foreign gold standards and have not found anything to explain this.
My US Mint Commemorative Medal Set
I sent an inquiry to Vik Kundu via the JM website:
https://matthey.com/products-and-markets/pgms-and-circularity/pgm-refining-and-recycling
Maybe they will respond.
Yelling at clouds on pmbug.com