TG-Gold-Super-Markt, a company based in Reutlingen, southwestern Germany, has developed a machine to dispense pieces of gold as small as one gram.

A prototype was launched in the summer of 2009 in Frankfurt Airport where many passengers queued to buy one gram, 5 gram or 10 gram bars. The machine was linked to the internet to update the gold value every few minutes to provide the lowest possible price The idea is to undersell the small group of banks and dealers who dominate the gold market in Germany  and make it convenient for anyone to transfer Euros into tangible gold

CEO Thomas Geissler announced then that they would be ready to delivery the first commercial machines in a few month time to potential buyers in Asia, the Middle East, Britain and the U.S. He said he came up with the idea of gold dispensers in 2008 and was  convinced by a heightened interest in gold as a hedge against inflation as the financial crisis rippled around the globe.

“People do not believe that the worldwide financial changes will have a good end,” Geissler said. “So I say give the people what they like to buy.”

Gold to Go vending machine

The demand in Frankfurt was brisk enough to install a more sophisticated machine in the lobby of Abu Dhabi’s emirate Palace hotel. The exterior of the machine is coated with a thin layer of 24-carat gold. Customers using the unusual ATM can choose from many items, including gold customized with logos.

One,five and ten gram gold bars were available and other options including a Maple Leaf Five Canadian dollar coin and a Kangaroo Fifteen Australian dollar coin. Both represent about one tenth of an ounce of gold and the price is updated in real time based on the gold value.

The margins are lower than those offered by banks but fluctuate at about 20 per cent higher than market prices.

The vending machines are easy to use and a virtually burglar and tamper proof and can be adapted to produce personalized logos

The company’s business plan is to install up to 200 gold ATMs world wide.

Maurice hall

Tags: crisis, Gold, Gold coins

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 27th, 2010 at 8:39 am and is filed under Gold, Gold coins, Investment, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.