Precious metals trade on a vocabulary borrowed from three centuries of London market practice. These are the terms that change what you pay, what you own and what happens if your custodian fails.
53 of 53 terms
Specific, serial-numbered bars held in your name, identified by bar, weight and serial number rather than expressed as a quantity owed to you. The vault operator is a bailee, not a debtor, so the metal is not part of its estate if it fails. In practice, ask for a bar list — an account that cannot produce one is not allocated, whatever the marketing says. The strongest form of ownership short of holding the bar yourself.
The price at which a dealer or counterparty will sell metal to you. Also called the offer.
The analytical determination of a metal's fineness. Refiners issue an assay certificate stating purity, weight and bar serial number; it is what makes a bar sellable without re-testing.
A market where the spot price exceeds the futures price, indicating immediate physical tightness. Rare in gold, and usually a signal of stress in the lending market.
See also:ContangoLease rate
The legal relationship in allocated storage: the vault holds identified bars for you as custodian, so the metal is not part of its estate in an insolvency. The single most important word in a custody agreement.
See also:Allocated storageUnallocated
The published register of serial numbers, weights and refiners held in a vault. A bar list you can reconcile to your own holding is the strongest practical evidence that your metal exists.
See also:Allocated storageSerial number
The price at which a dealer will buy metal from you. The gap between bid and ask is the round-trip cost of your position before any storage fee.
The gap between the price at which a platform will buy metal from you and the price at which it will sell the same metal to you at the same moment. It is the truest single measure of what participation costs, because unlike an advertised premium it cannot be presented selectively. Screenshot both sides of the same screen when comparing platforms.
See also:BidAskRound trip
Precious metal valued by weight and purity rather than by form, design or rarity. A one-ounce bar and a one-ounce coin of equal fineness carry the same bullion value.
A coin minted for investment rather than circulation, priced on metal content plus a fabrication premium. Legal tender status matters in some jurisdictions for tax purposes even though the face value is nominal.
See also:Numismatic premiumSovereign
A commitment by a dealer to repurchase metal it sold, usually at a published formula relative to spot. Its value depends entirely on the formula and on whether the guarantee survives market stress — a guarantee to buy at an unspecified ‘prevailing bid’ is not a guarantee of price.
See also:BidRound tripLiquidity
A purity fraction in twenty-fourths: 24ct is fine gold, 22ct is 916.7 fineness, 18ct is 750. Distinct from the metric carat used for gemstone weight.
See also:Fineness
Unbroken professional custody from refiner to vault. Metal that never leaves the chain trades without re-assay; metal that leaves it usually re-enters at a wider bid or an assay fee.
See also:Good DeliveryAssay
The New York futures exchange where the benchmark gold contract (GC) trades. Its settlement prices drive the 30-day trend series shown on this site.
The normal condition in gold futures, where forward prices sit above spot by roughly the cost of carry: interest plus storage minus the lease rate.
See also:Backwardation
The risk that the entity on the other side of your holding fails to perform — the platform, the vault operator, or the issuer of a metal-backed instrument. Allocated bailment reduces it close to zero for the metal itself; unallocated balances, digital claims and pooled accounts do not.
See also:UnallocatedBailmentPooled storage
The contract that determines what you actually own. The clauses that matter are the ownership characterisation (bailment or debt), the operator’s right to substitute or lend metal, the insurance basis, the withdrawal mechanics and fees, and what happens to your holding on the operator’s insolvency. Keep a copy outside the platform.
A non-destructive check comparing measured mass and volume against gold's 19.32 g/cm³. Clears crude counterfeits; tungsten at 19.25 g/cm³ is the one substitute that survives it.
Buying a fixed monetary amount at regular intervals so more metal is acquired when prices fall. The mechanism behind a Goldsparplan; its value depends on premium discipline, not on timing.
See also:Goldsparplan
The cost of turning refined metal into a specific product. Small bars and coins carry a larger fabrication premium per ounce than kilobars because the work is the same but the metal is less.
See also:Premium over spot
Purity expressed in parts per thousand. Investment bars are typically 999.9 fine; a Krugerrand is 916.7 fine but still contains a full troy ounce of gold.
A bonded area — Singapore, Zurich and Dubai are the best-known for metals — where goods are not treated as imported. Ownership can change inside the zone without triggering import VAT or duty; those charges attach on withdrawal into the domestic market, which is why delivery, not purchase, is usually the taxable moment.
See also:VAT exemptionVaulting fee
The number of ounces of silver one ounce of gold buys. Traders use extremes in the ratio to switch between metals rather than to time the dollar price of either.
A monthly gold savings plan: a fixed contribution buys metal automatically, usually into allocated vault storage. Cost drag from premium and custody, not spot timing, decides the outcome.
See also:Dollar-cost averagingVaulting fee
The LBMA standard defining acceptable bars for the London market: roughly 400 troy ounces, minimum 995 fine, from an accredited refiner with an unbroken chain of custody.
Spot divided by 31.1035, the standard unit for savings plans and for most of the world outside the London and New York markets. Comparing platforms on cost per gram accumulated, rather than on headline percentages, is the only way to make different fee structures commensurable.
See also:Troy ounceSpot priceGoldsparplan
A 1,000-gram bar (32.15 troy ounces), the dominant physical unit in Asian markets and the cheapest common form per ounce for private investors.
The London Bullion Market Association, which sets refiner accreditation standards and oversees the twice-daily LBMA Gold Price auction used as the global reference.
The twice-daily auction benchmark set in London at 10:30 and 15:00 UK time, used to settle contracts and to price many vault products. Distinct from the continuously moving spot quote.
See also:Spot priceLBMA
The implied cost of borrowing physical gold, derived from the spread between dollar interest rates and gold forward rates. Spikes signal scarcity of lendable metal.
How quickly a holding converts to cash without a price concession. For bullion it is a property of the wrapper, not the metal: an in-chain vaulted Good Delivery bar is highly liquid, an identical bar delivered to your home and returned to market later may require an assay and trade at a discount.
A floor on the storage charge, applied when the percentage fee on your holding falls below a stated amount. It is the single most common reason a small account’s real cost bears no relation to the advertised tariff — a 5 unit floor on a 1,000 unit holding is 0.6% a year, not the quoted 0.12%.
See also:Vaulting feePremium over spot
The Basel III requirement that banks fund illiquid assets with stable, long-dated liabilities. Unallocated precious metal positions attract a high required funding factor, which raised the cost of running an unallocated book and is a structural cause of wider unallocated spreads relative to allocated storage fees.
See also:UnallocatedAllocated storage
The portion of a coin's price attributable to rarity, condition or collectability rather than metal. It can vanish independently of the gold price, and in the EU it can also push a coin outside the VAT exemption.
See also:Bullion coinPremium over spot
Metal segregated from the operator's own assets in aggregate, but not identified to you by serial number. Cheaper than allocated, weaker in an insolvency.
See also:Allocated storage
The full difference between what you pay and the reference spot price, including fabrication, dealer margin, shipping and payment surcharges. The single most important number when comparing platforms.
See also:Fabrication premiumSpot price
The nominal bond yield minus expected inflation. Gold has no coupon, so its opportunity cost rises when real yields rise — historically the tightest macro relationship gold has.
The total cost of buying and later selling the same metal: purchase premium plus the dealer's buy-back discount, before storage. The number that decides whether rebalancing is worthwhile.
See also:SpreadBuy-back
Your metal stored physically apart from other clients’ holdings and from the operator’s own inventory, usually in a dedicated compartment. Distinct from allocation: metal can be allocated to you by serial without being physically segregated, and segregation typically carries a higher fee.
The refiner's unique identifier stamped on a bar and recorded on its assay certificate. Allocated ownership is meaningless without it.
See also:Allocated storageBar list
A British 22-carat coin containing 7.3224 grams of fine gold. Widely traded in the UK and India, and exempt from UK capital gains tax as legal tender.
The price for immediate settlement of unallocated gold in the London over-the-counter market, quoted per troy ounce. Every premium in our comparison table is measured against it.
The narrowing of retail premiums after a demand spike, as mints catch up with orders and dealer inventories rebuild. It typically takes months rather than weeks, which is why buyers who pay a panic premium rarely recover it and why a premium ceiling is a more useful discipline than a price view.
See also:Premium over spotFabrication premium
An independent physical count of vault holdings against the operator’s client ledger, ideally conducted at least annually by a named auditor and published. It is the only external verification that the metal on your statement exists; a security badge or an insurance mention is not a substitute.
See also:Bar listCounterparty risk
The traditional East Asian weight unit still quoted in Hong Kong and Taiwan gold markets, most commonly 37.4290 grams for the Hong Kong tael. Like the tola, it matters when comparing quotes across regional markets rather than as a trading unit in London or New York.
See also:TolaGram priceTroy ounce
A South Asian and Gulf unit equal to 11.6638 grams. Dubai and Indian dealers commonly quote ten-tola bars.
The standard precious-metals weight: 31.1034768 grams, about 10% heavier than the avoirdupois ounce used for groceries.
Measuring sound velocity through a bar — roughly 3,240 m/s in fine gold — to detect a substituted core. The standard non-destructive test where XRF cannot reach.
See also:XRFDensity test
A claim on a bullion bank's metal rather than ownership of a specific bar. You are an unsecured creditor. Cheap, liquid, and the weakest form of ownership.
See also:Allocated storage
The EU and UK relief for investment gold: bars of at least 995 fineness in market-accepted weights, and qualifying legal tender coins. Silver, platinum and palladium receive no equivalent relief.
See also:Numismatic premium
The annual charge for storage and insurance, usually quoted as a percentage of holding value and billed monthly. Over a ten-year horizon it can exceed the purchase premium.
Several jurisdictions include bullion in the base for annual net-wealth or property taxes even where the disposal gain is untaxed. Because the rules turn on residence rather than vault location, offshore storage does not remove a domestic reporting obligation. Confirm current national guidance before sizing a holding.
See also:VAT exemptionFree-trade zone
X-ray fluorescence analysis, which reads composition to a depth of microns. Excellent against surface adulteration and under-karating, blind to a plated core.
See also:Ultrasonic testingDensity test
Most of these terms exist because they describe a cost or a risk. Once you can tell allocated from pooled, and a fabrication premium from a dealer margin, the comparison table stops being a list of brands and becomes a price sheet you can read.
Every term here maps onto a line in our dealer scoring model. Read the methodology to see how premium, custody, security and friction are weighted into a single number.