Gold: how to melt, cast and/or blend it to hide it?

Replies

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  gohm

  Ok, practical answer:
  No, it is not practical for an average person to cast gold or any other metal really. Lead can be a problem in many parts of the world. Besides, then the process would need to be repeated to refine the gold again for usage. Stashing it in a safe, safe deposit box or hiding it on your property would be the best bet. You would not want the gold in one piece as then it could not be used for trade. Small standardized weights would be best plus easier to carry and transport. The fact that one had smelting equipment would be more of a tip off than anything else.
  
  Unpractical: Pay one person to cast half into the top half of a falcon. Find another person to pay to cast the remaining gold into the last half of a falcon. Glu halves together and paint black. Nobody would think someone would do exactly like in the famous old movie, the Maltese Falcon. It's so obvious nobody would think it. Having the halves done seperately would prtect you from one caster to know how the finished product looks!
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  Roadrunner

  Thanks for your input!
  
  What would be the problem with casting lead and tin? Wouldn't a kitchen stove be enough, if one melts a little at a time? To uncover the gold for trade, couldn't the lead and tin be melted off on a stove? Maybe the pieces mustn't be too large or it will need too much energy before reaching even the melting point of tin. Oh, why do I even consider lead, tin is non-toxic and has lower melting point.
  
  Instead of melting and casting gold, one could maybe grind gold pieces into powder. Losses shouldn't be too bad, I hope, since gold has such a hich density that even fine dust shouldn't be able to fly far off. Is there equipment and method for grinding gold into grains rather than dust?
  
  So, tin objects (soldiers, plates and such) with gold grains inside them, might be a good idea. Tin objects could take any shape and be painted to conceal that they are metallic. The grains need to somehow be put in the molds so that they don't appear at the surface of the finished tin object. Maybe by filling the mold first only half way with tin, then drilling a hole in that piece and filling it with gold grains/dust. Then putting it back in the mold and fill it all up with tin.
  
  Since gold is rather malleable, could one hammer gold grains into one (flat) piece again with a sledge? Or press them together with a simple machine press, without heating?
  
  The problem with safes is that they don't stop the government, which is the greatest threat. Roosevelt 1933 became the by far greates gold thief throughout history of human kind, and he's Obamas idol. Society needs money of stable purchasing power in order to trade, and trade is necessary for division of work, which in turn is necessary for all economic activities beyond hunting/gathering/looting.
  
  [Of course I don't possess any significant amounts of gold. I'm considering the subject because of the depression and the coming dollar crisis and the increased public interest in gold which it is generating.]
• 

  gohm

  I don't think the government looting your home is the biggest threat. If it is, smelting the gold won't stop that. Gold is publically traded so it's value also depends on the market. If the market completely collapses so does the majority of the value of gold. Yes, you could grind and hammer the gold, however again, I do not think that is very practical as a lot of time and energy will be spent with that and casting. It still will be around to be taken. Much easier to bury it in the ground, in a wall or in a hidden safe on your property. In a total collapse of an economy things like: water, fuel, food (and the items to produce them) will be more valuable.
  
  Also, the Roosevelt "stealing gold" thing is a bit of the stretch of truth by conspiracy theorists.
• 

  Roadrunner

  gohm

  Much easier to bury it in the ground, in a wall or in a hidden safe on your property.

  Yes, that's the first line of defence. But even if it is stumbled upon by someone, I don't want them to realize that it is gold. That's why I want it to be inside another metal, like tin.
  
  

  Yes, you could grind and hammer the gold

  So one can merge gold grain/dust into one piece again, using a hammer? Gold is quite malleable and has no oxidation on its surface, so I'd guess it should "merge" easily. But what is the science of it? Is there some kind of "mergeability measure" around for metals?
  
  
  I shouldn't maybe discuss monetary economics here, but anyway:
  

  Gold is publically traded so it's value also depends on the market. If the market completely collapses so does the majority of the value of gold.

  It never has, through thousands of years. You need about the same amount of gold to buy a nice suite today, as a Roman did 2000 years ago. Occasionally a 1000 year old wiking treasure is dug up. If its gold metal value could buy a ship 1000 years ago, it will buy a nice cruiser also today. If you dig down a million dollar (in any paper currency) today, and the centralbank achieves its goal to create an inflation of about 2% per year (which is what most central banks are going for long-term, although they always "happen" to create higher inflation than that even in best of times), then how much will than million dollar be worth if found again in a 1000 years? 0.1 cent! Yes, a million times 0.98^1000 = 0.1 cent. The whole million will have been stolen by inflationary money creating by the government's centralbank.
  
  The US is greatly in debt, and is running huge defecits accelerating out of control. And the "rescue" packages will only prolong the depression, since they will conserve ultra high asset prices and subsidize unprofitable banks and industries. The depression will not be over until asset prices have come down to true market levels and industrial resources have been reallocated to profitable use through bankruptcies (i.e. handed over from bad management to good management and restructured to meet actual consumer demand). The US government does everything it can to prevent an economic recovery. Just like in the 1929-1945 depression and during the staggflation in the 1970s, which ended only when the central bank raised interest rates shareply during Reagan in the early 1980s. The 0% interest of Bernanke is a guarantee that economic recovery cannot take place. And this time the situation is far worse.
  
  The US will not pay its debts by cutting social welfare and raising taxes (not to any substantial degree). They will pay it by printing the money, i.e. out of nowhere type in a huge number in an electronic account at the FED and force people to accept that number as legal tender. The purchasing power of the dollar will crash in proportion to those trillions of new dollars created out of thin air.
  
  Hyperinflation is standard modus operandi for governments (currency monopolists) in situations like this. Over a dozen countries have experienced hyperinflation since 1990.
  
  

  I don't think the government looting your home is the biggest threat. If it is, smelting the gold won't stop that.
  
  Also, the Roosevelt "stealing gold" thing is a bit of the stretch of truth by conspiracy theorists.

  Eh, no. Do you claim that gold was handed in to the government voluntarily at $21 an ounce? (How bad a deal that was is proven by gold now being worth almost 50 times as many dollars per ounce!) No, Roosevelt threatened every American with violence in order to get his hands on their gold. He looted it.
  
  

  In a total collapse of an economy things like: water, fuel, food (and the items to produce them) will be more valuable.

  It is also necessary to organize productive activities in society, such as producing food and fuel. It is impossible to coordinate production without pricing, and pricing is impossible when the currency hyperinflates. That is why gold always gets so extremely valuable and useful when governments destroy their paper currencies. The value of gold is stable because the amount of gold is stable. politicians cannot create gold, it can only be mined at market prices from mining operations. The reason why governments have stolen gold is precisely to get rid of that competitor to their paper currencies, which they create out of thin air at the cost of inflation for everyone else.
  
  And I don't believe that we will have real starvation. Food packages will be handed out by the military to the population. They can handle that somewhat even without a pricing system, as long as the storages suffice. Life will pretty much be a constant Katarina disaster in that way. But anyone who has gold will be able to price items, and hence be able to trade and cause specialization of labor and thus initiate an economic recovery process of the society. Gold is very useful in precisely that way even in North Korea of today. It helps alleviate some of the worst starvations in their otherwise price-system-lacking economy. Gold has always been money and will always be money, regardless of what politicians say about it.