Gold Gold, and more Gold

Believe it or not, all the main gold shops in Thailand have real gold.  Lots of it.  Thai gold is unique in that it is 23k gold or ( 23 parts gold to 24 parts)  on the 0-24k scale.  That means it's 96.5% pure gold and a mix of copper and silver for the other 3.5%.

 It's absolutely wonderful to be in a country where they wear their wealth and use gold as a store of value.  Thais don't usually buy bars or coins, but keep their gold in the form of jewelry.  Whether it's for a store of value later, to wear, or both, Thais are very closely linked to gold and its uses.




Thai gold also uses it's own weight measurement other than the Troy ounce.  They use the Baht (not to be confused with their currency name Thai Baht),  which is 15.244 Grams.  At 96.5% that means that every 1 Baht of gold has 14.71 Grams of actual pure gold in it.  Compare that with 31.1 Grams for a Troy ounce and you get just under 1/2 a Troy oz. per Baht of gold.  It took me some time to get used to the conversion here.

 Thai Gold price is set by the government and the shops can only sell it and buy it within a very small price window.  That means that gold here is cheap compared to the rest of the world where you pay a premium of $40-80 over spot price for gold, while Thai gold is around $3-9 over spot price per Troy Ounce!

Gold shops here are amazing to walk into, everyone is unique and has its own unique set of jewelry for sale.  We spent the better part of a day walking from shop to shop in the Wawarot market area of Chiang Mai looking at jewelery and coins/bars.  Thousands of designs of rings and necklaces.

If you ever get the opportunity to go to Thailand, save some money for some Thai gold.  It's all around a great deal and can be very fun to wear or hoard depending on your desires. :)