Home » Business » Investing in gold attracts Bohemia, but you will not recognize the counterfeit

Investing in gold attracts Bohemia, but you will not recognize the counterfeit

According to analysts, a correction, ie a decline, may come in the shorter term, but they expect further appreciation of the precious metal in the future.

“A further rise in the price of gold to $ 2,500 an ounce cannot be ruled out. In recent weeks, yellow metal has been bought with exceptional intensity by very well-informed wealthy individuals and wealthy families from all over the world, fearing the falling dollar and possible globally significant security confrontations, such as the USA and China, “Lukáš Kovanda, an economist at Czech Fund, told Práva.

The state does not control investment gold

In addition to investors from professionals or companies, gold is attracting more and more Czechs, who see it as a chance to appreciate part of their savings.

The interest is confirmed by domestic traders in precious metals. “Zlaťáky.cz has seen an increase in demand for investment gold in recent months, which is a logical outcome of global events in recent days or months that broke the ‘magical’ level of $ 2,000 per troy ounce,” Lukáš Jankovský, Práva, told Práva. They have more than doubled in the last month and estimate that it will be even larger in the following month.

According to another Golden Gate seller, people have started buying more physical gold and silver since March this year, a year-on-year increase of three to four times over the last few months.

A certain advantage of purchasing investment gold is that it is exempt from VAT under European legislation, while gold jewelry or medals, for example, are already subject to a rate of 21 percent.

But acquiring gold is not without risk. Currently, the police in Brno are dealing with a case where employees of an unnamed company counterfeit gold by mixing silver.

As a last resort, employees face up to eight years in prison in court. The Czech authorities have no idea how common such frauds are. The issue is not controlled by the Czech Trade Inspection Authority, the hallmarking office or other state institutions.

“The hallmarking authority supervises the market for precious metal products. The so-called however, investment gold or investment ingots are not among the products of precious metals according to the hallmarking law. For this reason, their production and sales are not monitored by the hallmarking office, “said Roman Kopečný, director of the hallmarking control department.

In general, he would advise customers to buy gold from reputable suppliers. People can verify the authenticity of gold in the laboratory of the hallmarking office for a fee, but at the same time the ingot is removed from the packaging, remelted, then it is no longer investment gold and is not exempt from VAT. From the expert’s point of view, Kopečný argues with the statements of traders, according to which the authenticity of gold can be recognized by its weight and dimensions.

“For example, tungsten metal has a similar density as gold, you have no chance to recognize counterfeits,” he added.

However, traders assure that the smallest ingots are not worth counterfeiting. It’s like, for example, banknotes, they are counterfeited only from a certain face value. The police previously informed about the sale of counterfeit gold in pawnshops, which the person interested in a serious investment will probably avoid.

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