Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Sine qua non]

Where can gold be purchased reliably here?

I got some prices on gold pig figurines for sale in the local jewler's shop. He wanted 270,000 won for an 11.25 gram 24K (100% pure) gold figurine.

At the current price of gold, 11.25 grams of unprocessed gold sells for about 240,000 won (USD $654/oz.; adjusted for currency difference).

What I wonder is, after living here so many years and knowing the comparativly widespread lack of consumer protections here (relative to back home), how likely is it that there would be any funny business in this deal (for example, short weighting the gold, selling 20K gold as 24K gold, etc.)?

270,000 won for something costing 240,000 won unprocessed leaves only a 30,000 won mark-up. An 11% mark-up seems suspiciously low for something as precious as gold. Does this sound fishy, or does this all this sound above board?

[sistersarah]

i dunno about unprocessed gold; never bought any here....only in dubai...

but i have a little jewelry collection and i shop around a lot in jongno to find reliable shop owners. the prices here are pretty low in general. the sets i've bought here are really good quality and cost WAY less than they would at home. i love it!

of course you're wise to be very cautious about the low mark-up, but i've found the prices here very reasonable.

[crsandus]

Gold is such a well known commodity and there are so many ways to get your hands on it that there is usually a very small mark up. If anything, the W 30,000 mark up actually sounds rather high to me. One of the cheapest ways to buy gold is to buy troy oz bars or South African coins. They have maybe a $10-$15 mark up from the price of gold (per oz).

This thread reminds me of a story about how Korean gold/jewelry is "better". My former landlady was telling me how American jewelry is not as good as Korea's because she once got a ring from the states for maybe $50 or so. At some point she went to Korea to try to sell that ring or see what they would buy it for and the pawnshop basically told her that he wouldn't buy that ring at all. It was worthless. From this failed transaction, she concluded American jewelry is inferior...

Now I don't know anything about standards of jewelry but I trying not to laugh so hard that I failed to mention that she might have had better luck not trying to pawn $50 (retail) pieces of jewelry.

[RJjr]

I've always stuck with coins and bars, myself.

I noticed some coins at a jewelry store in one of the upper floors of the Lotte Department Store in Jamsil a few months ago. I don't remember exactly what type they were, but I think they were mostly Pandas and maybe a Maple Leaf. I didn't ask the price since I can't speak Korean and am leaving at the end of my contract (next week) and don't want the hassle of carrying those through customs. The coins at the store in Lotte weren't set in those necklace rings, which is why they caught my attention. I only like coins when they're by themselves and not rigged up with BS bells and whistles.

[Sine qua non]

I wanted to get a gold piggie since I'll be returning home soon. It seems that the gold piglets are some kind of symbolically Korean gold figurines.

Plus, someone in my family (I don't remember who, maybe my sister-in-law) likes to collect pig figurines, so I thought this would make a cool gift.

There was a gold turtle figurine in the jewler's shop, too. That would be a neat gold collectible. I just wish that gold wasn't so expensive now, or rather that I could wait a couple of years before buying one (I'm guessing the price of gold is just going to dwindle down throughout the next couple of years).

I think I saw somewhere that in China they sell little gold panda figurines or something and that some other place sells some other kind of symbolically representative figurines. Maybe I didn't see anything about that; I forget.

[RJjr]

[HapKi]

Plus this is the Year of the Pig.
The 1 don (3.75 gram) gold pigs are quite small, and go for around 85,000-90,000 won at the moment. Like you said, the mark up from gold's daily spot price is very little. A lot of people have imitation ones as cell phone ornaments.
Also, you've probably noticed the cheap looking gold rings that are usually sold in the same display case area as the pigs. Those are for baby ddol party gifts (baby 1st year b-day party) and not to be worn. Also 1 don (3.75 grams) is the normal size. We (or our daughter, I should say ) received quite a few on her 1st B-day. I'd be curious to know what other married couples with kids did with theirs?