Question about gold and silver in existance today, above ground

[bluesky99]

The recent thread on China buying gold and silver got me to thinking about this question:

So let's take a common number that there is roughly 5 billion oz of gold above ground in existance today, worth roughly 8 trillion $ at today's price.

Does anyone know what percentage of that 5 billion oz is:
1) in coin form
2) in gold bar form, in World Bank and IMF vaults
3) in gold bar form, in private ownership
4) in some other form

Likewise the question goes for the roughly 1 billion ounces of silver above ground today. What percentage of above ground silver is in coin form, etc?

[bluesky99]

Did I get that gold number wrong, 5 billion oz of gold above ground, or 5 trillion oz? Gotta run right now, will look into it later when I sign on again.

[Irons]

I think 5 bil is correct, interesting question on what form is it in. They have been pounding out gold coins for a lot of years.

[AU+AG=Bacon]

For gold according to wiki.. I looked up "gold reserves". To date ~165,000 tons have been mined I would guess metric tons easier for me to calculate... 165,000@32150ozt/per metric ton= 5,304,750,000 ounces of gold.

According to the World Gold Council in 2008
Holding Percentage
Jewelry 52% -- 2,758,470,000ozt
Central banks 18% --954,855,000ozt
Investment (bars, coins) 16%--848,760,000ozt
Industrial 12% -- 636,570,000ozt
Unaccounted 2%-- 106,095,000ozt


The only info I can find for silver is from silver bug sites, and varies wildly.

Bacon

[Irons]

Unaccounted 2%-- 106,095,000ozt

My my, look at all those boating accidents. I don't feel so bad about having lost all of mine now, I'm in good company!~:bear_w00t:

[AU+AG=Bacon]

That 2% is what is missing from Ft. Knox. At least they are honest about it ;)

Bacon

[bluesky99]

So there is about 1 billion oz of gold held by the central banks, worth about $1.6 trillion dollars.

If China wanted to, they could theoretically purchase a very very large chunk of this gold. But:

1) Would the central banks sell it to them? Would they *have* to sell it to them? Why would they want to sell it to them? Seems like the central banks would want to hold on to it.

2) I think we discussed this in another thread some time ago, but if China bought a huge chunk, they would not take delivery, correct? It would just be "marked" as China's while still in the Central Bank vault, right?

3) Who would want to wager that the central banks are "selling" more gold than they have in their vaults?

4) Then the pool that we GIM'ers by from is the investment coin/bar holdings, which is about 0.85 billion oz. Governments don't buy from this pool do they? Or do they? And if so, then they probably DO take delivery?

5) Or would a govt like China buy from the paper GLD and SLV markets?

It seems like all the major govt's in the world could easily buy all the gold from the central bank vaults. But it doesn't make sense that the central banks would want to "empty" their coffers.

Kind of makes my head spin, I know there must be some easy answers for this, but perhaps it is more complicated than it looks.

BTW, Irons & Bacon, loved your takes on the Unaccounted 2%.;)

[ewells]

Forgot where I read it but china said they wouldnt buy too much gold/silver. And I believe it. They arnt stupid enough to drive the price way way way up. They will probably do it over time.

[engineear]

Saw in today's paper in Phx. that some of the reservoir levels are up 30%!! Irons...were you boating out here again?

[Irons]

Saw in today's paper in Phx. that some of the reservoir levels are up 30%!! Irons...were you boating out here again?

Spike and Gcubed probably went for a boat ride, they are in AZ!!