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 Replies: 24 / Views: 1,871 |
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Valued Member
United States
311 Posts |
Guess first without looking it up.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6448 Posts |
40% of the world supply? Indians have a true cultural affinity for gold.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1653 Posts |
I'd guess that most of the gold in private hands is jewelry.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7273 Posts |
I live in NJ and we have a large Indian population and for a while there was a large amount of break ins as it was common knowledge that Indians had a lot of gold. I work with someone that got his daughter $200,000 in gold when she got married and my coin shop had a guy that came in and would get an ounce of gold every 2-4 weeks, his goal was to have 100 ounces of gold for each one of his daughters for when they got married.
As to how much is the hand of Indians I would assume the upper middle and 5% have the majority, while India has the largest middle class, majority of the country is poor. The difference between the majority of the population and the rich is astonishing. I would expect most of the gold is owned by the rich.
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Valued Member
 United States
311 Posts |
Here are some numbers:
Gold mined so far 216,000 metric tons. Maybe another 50,000 metric tons in the ground.
USA 8300 tons
Germany 3000 tons
Italy 2400 tons
France 2400 tons
Russia 2300 tons
India 876 tons
It is estimated Indian citizens hold 24,000 to 35,000 tons gold.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6448 Posts |
I'm not sure those numbers make sense to me. If 216k has been mined, how can the top country only hold 8.3k in the national bank? That suggests that the majority of gold ownership is in private hands, not government hands.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2455 Posts |
wow, that's much higher than I would have guessed. 24,000? 35,000? wow. that's a lot of ounces. 1 tonne = 32,150ozT... too big for me to get my pea brain around. so the people hold a lot of gold there. I wonder what the estimate is for US citizens.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3843 Posts |
Don't have anything to add myself but am watching this thread with interest.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7273 Posts |
Makes sense, if 50% of Indians have 2 ounces that's 30,000 metric tons. Considering the 2 Indian friends I know each gave between $100/$200k in gold to their daughters for their wedding days it makes sense. Just using the 50,000,000 upper middle class Indian families that equated to about 20 ounces per person. Also gold is passed down from mother to daughter/son. Lots of people in the U.S. sell their gold jewelry. In India most jewelry is 24k.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19107 Posts |
Mustn't lose track of the fact that vast gold deposits are known, yet are not considered economically or technically viable to 'mine' given the current state of extraction technologies and market factors.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7273 Posts |
Currently gold costs between $1200 and $1400 per ounce to mine and refine, so there is a big profit in owning a gold mine. Many mines that were unprofitable are now profitable to reopen.
Edited by hfjacinto
10/13/2025 09:38 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7273 Posts |
Sadly I'm not in the 100 ounce club :( this is an old picture, I sold 2 bullion coins from here to get numismatic coins. Should have waited :(  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5821 Posts |
That's an impressive collection, hfjacinto!
I'm curious, though -- since most of your coins are graded, I'm assuming you consider them to be more "collectible" than purely bullion. Would you ever consider selling them at bullion prices, or are you thinking they will someday be worth more than that due to their numismatic value?
Personally, although I do have a decent number of non-bullion gold coins (such as St. Gauden's), I don't have any that are graded and slabbed since I did buy them essentially as bullion with the thought of selling them as such in the future some day.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7273 Posts |
Hi Barry, the graded bullion (all are 69's) I picked up at bullion prices so I would sell them at bullion prices. The others are numismatic so they had a premium in the past. I believe now the prices for most of the pre 33 is the bullion price. Honestly there is so little premium in pre 33 gold that unless higher grade, you can sell most of it for the price of modern bullion.
Barry I also have seen some of your gold posts, your collection is impressive, mine is no way as impressive as yours.
Edited by hfjacinto
10/13/2025 11:16 am
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Moderator
 United States
187446 Posts |
Interesting discussion.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1057 Posts |
glenmorenee -
Where would I go to find the data you presented yesterday?
I presume stats on other countries would be available too?
Thanks in advance!
"If everything seems to be under control, you're just not going fast enough."
--- Mario Andretti
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Replies: 24 / Views: 1,871 |
Posted 10/12/2025 7:29 pm
