tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17760040.post2372556813766215827..comments2010-03-05T10:33:11.630+08:00sapphireslingernoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17760040.post-61780693665411805382010-03-05T10:33:11.617+08:002010-03-05T10:33:11.617+08:00Dear Anonymous,<br /><br />I e-mailed the people at Bullionvault, and here is their reply to me regarding your comments:<br /><br />Thanks for your email. Four-fifths of the world&#39;s annual gold-market turnover is re-worked from large bars into smaller items (rings, bracelets, bonding wire, leaf, coins etc). A fake would soon show, but there are NO reports of Good Delivery bars being found to be &quot;salted with tungsten&quot; -- none whatsoever.<br /><br />The internet authors claiming otherwise make basic mistakes about what the LBMA is, and about what it does. These errors undermine their pretense to &quot;insider&quot; sources. Yes, fake bars could certainly circulate outside Good Delivery, as the recent German TV report shows. But that 500-gram fraud was apparently spotted quite easily by a gold-foundry worker. Good Delivery bars, on the other hand, are closely studied by expert specialists, such as the independent assayers we send into the vault each year to check the quantity and quality of our clients&#39; property.<br /><br />You can learn more about Good Delivery at the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA)&#39;s website. You&#39;ll note just how exacting the criteria for refining and assaying are:<br /><br />http://www.lbma.org.uk/delivery<br /><br />There is no need to re-assay, because the Good Delivery standards do not end with production. Each bar must then be kept continuously inside secure, LBMA-accredited vaults. Even when they bear the correct bar stamps, large gold bars are not usually accepted from people outside the Good Delivery circuit, which is why taking a Good Delivery bar into private possession seriously dents its value. Any potential buyer, lacking the accredited storage history which ensures integrity, would rather deal accredited metal from an accredited source. It&#39;s this warranty -- that delivery is good -- which makes the professional wholesale market cost-efficient and liquid.<br /><br />BullionVault only buys Good Delivery bars, and each bar held for our customers continues to meet the necessary criteria for selling as Good Delivery, too. If any bar were found to be bad, the organization which sold to us would be liable in law. Our customers would not be exposed. Given that fact, plus the fact that no Good Delivery bars have been reported as &quot;salted&quot; -- and the fact that we hold only a tiny proportion of total Good Delivery production -- we are very happy to guarantee each gram of client gold property as 100% gold.<br /><br />Kind regards,<br />Adrian<br /><br />-- <br /><br />Adrian Ash<br />Head of Research<br />BullionVault.com<br /><br /> Buy &amp; Sell GOLD Online - at Your Price - Today<br /> http://www.BullionVault.com<br /><br />Main office: +44 20 8600 0130<br /><br />Brook House<br />229 Shepherds Bush Road<br />London W6 7AN<br />UNITED KINGDOMsapphireslingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15643577103071330952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17760040.post-57335713184028093572010-03-02T21:18:10.519+08:002010-03-02T21:18:10.519+08:00I believe you are right to be concerned about the integrity of the London Good Delivery system.<br /><br />However, BullionVault is part of that system and is therefore just as susceptible to being duped with tungsten &quot;gold&quot; bars as anyone else. <br /><br />I was also a customer of BullionVault and believe they are probably safe, but crucially, their assayers DO NOT test the bars they hold for actual gold content (just ask Adrian Ash), so they are entirely reliant on the integrity Good Delivery system. <br /><br />Also, their &quot;warranty&quot; that the bars are gold is pretty much worthless, because if the bars were analysed and found to be fake, BullionVault would be insolvent and unable to honour such a &quot;warranty&quot;.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com