Thai carnival gold
(ferdyboy / Shutterstock.com)
During my childhood years, the annual fair was a special event. At the time I lived in a neighborhood near a shopping center. During the summer holidays there was a fair with a small fair.
The lights, music and glitter of many a fairground attraction made a deep impression on me. The prizes at grabs, sliders, shooting galleries, etc. also caused quite a bit of excitement.
Yellow and shiny
After my tour of the fair I came home excited and asked my mother for a few quarters, because then I could win a 'gold' watch. Although I thought that my mother would also be impressed by all those precious prizes and would quickly give me the desired pocket money, she let me know that it was 'fairground gold'. It's shiny and yellow, but otherwise it's absolutely worthless, she told me firmly.
Since then, 'fairground gold' has stood for everything that is yellow and exaggeratedly shiny. I often thought about it when I went to buy a ring with my Thai girlfriend in Bangkok. I had promised her that and a promise is a debt.
kitsch?
Earlier I had already made the mistake of bringing her a gold necklace from the Netherlands. It gold in the Netherlands it is generally 14 or 18 carat and sometimes mixed with another precious metal. The color is therefore different, not as bright yellow as in Thailand. Personally, I like that much better. The Thai gold is light yellow in color and therefore looks very kitschy. In short, in my eyes: fairground gold.
This shows that I don't know anything about it, because the gold in Thailand is usually 23 carat. Almost pure gold and certainly not worthless fairground gold. For her, the well-intentioned necklace from the Netherlands was fairground gold. Fortunately, she was very happy with it.
Crazy about gold
By the way, Thai ladies are always crazy about gold. It retains its value and often the gold price rises over time. It is a piggy bank around the neck, in the ears or on the fingers.
There is also a practical side to it. Usually they get the gold jewelry from a farang friend. Should the relationship end on the rocks, they can exchange this unwanted memento of him for crisp fresh banknotes. Just go to the gold shop, view the daily exchange rate, weigh and pay! A pleasant plaster on the wound.
Chinatown
There is something else strange about the gold rush in Thailand. All gold shops look the same! You can find them in large numbers in Chinatown, mostly run by Chinese. The decoration is always red. Red with bright yellow gold, there is no arguing about taste. It wouldn't look out of place at any fair in the Netherlands.
The next hurdle still had to be overcome. The purchase of a nice ring is not easy in practice. I had agreed a budget with her in advance. In retrospect, I found out that I had set the budget a bit too wide. The price was really good. For a few thousand baht you already have a nice yellow ladies ring.
Modest
A new problem was born. The weight of the ring is important because that determines the price. Given the agreed budget, she should buy a club of a ring.
Fortunately, she does have style and taste. She definitely didn't want to look like a used-car dealer with such a big hideous ring. Two modest rings, well under budget, was the final compromise. She's happy, I'm happy, and the gold shopkeeper's happy. And my late mother doesn't have to wonder if I won my girlfriend at the fair. A comforting thought.
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Good story. And don't be surprised if what you bought her has been exchanged 2 months later for other gold, or a new phone or something. This gold often has little emotional value for the ladies. Piggy bank around the neck, fingers or in the ears is indeed the right name! 😉
@ For us, a ring does indeed have more emotional value. The Thai are a bit more practical.
As far as gold is concerned, I notice no difference between the Thai ladies and the European ones.
In that respect they are the same magpies.
Of course I also had to pull my cut for the (piggy bank).
But according to my girlfriend, if you have a gold chain around your neck from a farang, the Thai men can see that she is taken, and that she is an honorable lady who does not go to bed with everyone.
Whether this applies to all women I leave it in the middle.
A little Thai necklace (1 bath) now costs about 20.000 thb.
Indeed, it is always the Chinese who sell the gold, I have also noticed that they cannot repair it themselves (they say) so if it breaks, the motto is exchange and pay for it, it will be good trade, I suppose, but if I big mercedes from that chinese in prachuap see.
Converted, the Thai gold is cheaper than the Dutch, taking into account the carat content. Sallant detail, the Netherlands has some of the toughest regulations in the world regarding quality marks and guarantees with regard to the gold that is sold.
In Holland a piece of jewelry is a little bit of gold + nickel + manufacturing costs. If you want to sell it again later, you get ridiculously little back. 14K alloy. It has no value in the trade, so we call it MEUK. Before the war it was different in Holland. Just look at the pre-war jewelry of the farmers, gold fivers, tenners, etc. In Asia it is completely different: if you have money, you buy gold, if you find it difficult later, you sell it again and you lose practically nothing. At the opening of the new school year ( phut term), a lot of gold suddenly comes onto the market because everyone has to make an effort with the children again and that obviously affects the gold price. Just before Chinese New Year, gold is expensive because the Chinese like to pay out bonuses and gifts in gold (little gold on the market) if Peter really wants to do a good job next time, he could give his girlfriend a princessing, that is the absolute end here. Then you can never go wrong again. Finally, someone may wonder: where has the gold gone from the pre-war, oh-so-rich Netherlands? It has been captured, melted into sandwiches and is located in Fort Knox in the US
Dear Andrew, gold+nickel (or palladium) produces the so-called white gold. Gold is usually alloyed with silver (both precious metals). Palladium has a decolourising property, which means that gold alloyed with palladium produces the so-called white gold. Nickel is not a precious metal. Sometimes gold is alloyed with nickel because nickel is cheaper, but that results in a lower quality. Gold alloyed with nickel yields nothing when sold. So that is, as you call it, MUCK.
You can read that people do not know how the price of gold is determined.
Gold costs the same all over the world. Gold is a world commodity. And is certainly not made more expensive during the Chinese New Year, that is really nonsense.
Gold is traded through the stock exchanges and that is where the price is influenced.
The price of the gold commodity is determined on the commodity market, but that is not the price on the retail market. The broker also wants to earn. During the periods when there is a lot of consumer demand for an end product, prices rise accordingly. In that respect, Andrew is right.
By the way, pure gold is 24 karat. In the west, gold is alloyed with silver. 75% gold and 25% silver yields 18 karat. 50% gold and 50% silver yields 12 karat. The lighter the color, the more silver it contains. It makes the alloyed metal harder so that it retains its shape longer. It is not the case that alloyed gold with silver is worth nothing when sold by weight.
Usually the actual gold content is weighed and you get paid for it when you sell it. The value of the silver content is then negligible. Only an expert can determine whether the Thai gold is pure gold. It could well be that the (Asian) manufacturers mix the gold with a semi-precious metal that determines the quality and also the color. In that case, the gold is worthless to the Western market.
Let me clarify something: the Chinese do not pay out bonuses in gold bars but in gold chains, etc., of which there are so many of them in yawaraat in the shops. The final price in these shops is determined exclusively by the traders. the price varies per store. If you want to sell a necklace that was bought in Yawaraat (and preferably in the same store), you get the price that is visible from the outside, otherwise you get less. Just before Chinese New Year the price rises. That is the issue of supply and demand and has nothing to do with the world trade in gold. If you do not want to sell your gold but pledge it, you will receive less from the Chinese owner of the long Tsjam Nam (pawny = Uncle Jan) and after a month he will also charge you interest. you have borrowed your gold chain and the next day your friend asks why your neck is less beautiful, you give a kiss on the inside of your right thumb and press your thumb on the table (as if you were making a fingerprint), you smile mysteriously and say nothing else .nice world here.isn't it?
I don't know much about gold. What is certain for me is that habits that go on internationally in Thailand do not quite work.
First, check the authenticity of the gold. Gold traders seem to have their own stamp system here and if they buy gold with an unknown stamp they are very careful. There seems to me to be no government control and if there was it would be as leaky as a basket like most things here.
Second, the gold price. Of course, it largely follows the world price, but with more demand from the local market, the price here really goes up (or in the case of a surplus, the price goes down). That is because gold is used here in a completely different way than eg. in Europe or America (although just wait until the Euro really breaks down, then everyone in Europe will also buy gold).
As for the rest... my wife sold her bridal gold necklace when the price went up nicely, but now regrets not waiting a little longer. Wearing expensive gold chains is not entirely without risk. My wife loves to wear her gold necklace with gold clog from NL and when she visits the family or to a wedding party, she also wears a Thai gold bracelet.
Chang Noi
Chang Noi is on the right wavelength. There is no government control, but there is a kind of commodity law (called O JO), you understand. It's a shame that your wife sold her bridal chain, but unfortunately it's peanut butter. no one knows what the price will do in a week. The Chinese are very smart guys, they indeed first look at the stamp and then start to look worried (this is to reduce the price). Furthermore, they can lower the chain into a bath to see what quality it is. (if in doubt) I thought it was great humor that your wife goes to a Thai party wearing a necklace with a clog.
Now when you talk about gold prices, they are the same all over the world, but when we talk about jewelry, then the differences arise, these include the price of making, and the VAT, bought gold in Belgium years ago for trade was a lot cheaper than in Holland, where the VAT on gold was a lot lower than in our country.
Must also be the case here in Thailand, my Thai wife has quite a lot of gold 18 Kr, and jewelry that I had made myself (trade surplus) and she wears it with pride) but perhaps because most of it is set with diamonds, and never heard complaining, and if so I will bring it directly here to Ome pietje de belener
Wearing gold is not only in Thailand, but throughout Asia an expression of wealth and preferably as flashy as possible. When I was first confronted with this, I jokingly had a bicycle chain and dentures painted gold and gave them to my wife as a gift.
It is clear that we (including my wife) have been blue with laughter.
That's a very generalization... At modern weddings, etc. you see more and more rings and there is an emotional value to them for the lovebirds, hey, they're just people with emotions! I recently talked to my girlfriend about buying an engagement ring in Thailand, but we don't really have enough cash so I asked if she could buy (exchange) some gold to finance the rings. She wanted to sell/exchange a necklace, but when I asked her if we could also exchange the first gold rings that we had bought for each other, the answer was a resounding “no, that is a special ring. Can not!".
I'm not into kitch but I think a modest piece of jewelery made of 23 carat gold is a lot nicer than that low carat 'stuff' from the Netherlands. Most people's reactions are that they see that it is a high carat, including the question whether it is (almost) hour gold and must have cost thousands of euros that ring I wear... there was only one who asked if that ring came from fair.. lol. 555
For the avoidance of doubt, the price of gold as a commodity is determined in dollars on the commodity market. Due to currency fluctuations, the price of gold in local currency can also fluctuate and therefore change without changing the market price in dollars. With this I also conclude that, for example, the fall of the Euro by 20% against the Dollar, the price of gold as a raw material in the Eurozone has risen proportionally without the world market price having changed.
Pure gold (24 karat = 99,9 percent after purification) is mainly used in industry because it is superconductive and has good resistance to acids and oxygen, which prevents corrosion. It is indeed too soft for jewelry, so that the jewelry will quickly deform.
Why are those gold stores all red?
I believe that most of the gold shops in TH are owned by ethnic Chinese and the color red traditionally represents good luck for them. That's why the outside of fireworks is red.
The color yellow (like gold) naturally represents wealth for them.
So gold in a red shop is the pinnacle of prosperity. 😉
Thai has five words for 'gold'. First of course กาญจนา kaanchanaa, then กนก kanok, ทอง thong, the most commonly used word, สุวรรณ soewan, as in Suwannaphumi (the Golden Land) and finally อุไร oerai. They are all common in names.