After the end of this year, the price of gold soared like a rocket. Since March, the international gold price has soared by 7% in a week, and the domestic gold price has been refreshing its history almost every day. Taking Chow Tai Fook as an example, according to Jintou.com, since the beginning of April, the gold price of the brand's jewelry has risen by 33 yuan per gram, reaching 736 yuan at the peak. The recycling price of gold has also risen, to about 540 yuan, and some people on the Internet ridiculed that the Chinese aunts who bought gold 11 years ago have finally untied it.
In addition to Chinese aunts, stories of gold-related wealth are circulating on the Internet all the time: a guy in Hangzhou buys 1 million gold and earns 50% a year, and an investor sells 8 catties of gold at one time to realize 1.74 million ...... We wanted to explore the gold diggers who stepped on the wind and doubled their assets, but the rich man's gold game is a number that is beyond our reach from the original investment.
Finally, we selected 5 stories of ordinary people who are related to gold. They all made a little money in this wave of gold price rise. A sense of security and stability are the keywords they mention the most. Without the thrill of "one second of heaven, one second of hell" in the movie, for most people, hoarding gold is the last straw to avoid risk when other investment methods fail.
Text | Wang Xiao
访谈 | 王潇 郭斯文 陈婧瑄
Edit | Yang
Operations | killer whale
结婚买金越薄越好，“陈年旧金”烧出一堆土
@amber 37 years old
The owner of the golden stall of Shuibei Market, has been in the industry for ten years
The entire Shuibei market, as the price of gold rose to 500 yuan, quickly cooled down.
I've been working in finance in the jewellery industry for 10 years now. Usually, I occasionally post some gold jewelry in the Shuibei market in the circle of friends to accumulate some users. The year before last, I opened a counter with my friends in Shuibei Market and officially started a gold business.
The recent experience was like a dream. A month ago, the price of gold was not above 500 yuan, and the entire Shuibei market was very lively at that time. The front of my counter was crowded with people all the time, and I couldn't take care of it. Half of the people who came were in the Shuibei purchasing business, holding their mobile phones around the counter and taking pictures. During that time, two or three kilograms of gold could be sold every day, and the net profit alone was twenty or thirty thousand. People are very enthusiastic about buying gold, and many people will buy heavy bracelets, necklaces and the like.
▲ Shuibei market when business is good. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
At the beginning of March, when the price of gold rose to 500 yuan, I had a voice in my heart that said, "It's over, it must be cold." "500 yuan is like a line of defense in people's hearts, and once it is exceeded, the enthusiasm for gold will quickly turn cold. Sure enough, the flow of people in the factory has visibly decreased. The counter, which was originally full of people, would only come sporadically in the afternoon, and the purchasing agent was much less all of a sudden. People who used to buy gold have started to buy cheaper silver jewelry, and now they can earn thousands of dollars a day at most. The boss of every stall in the Shuibei market had a sad face.
No one wants to stand on a high post and buy. Some people even come to sell gold after three days of marriage. Generally speaking, three gold medals are bought for marriage, and in most cases, the man pays for it. A few days ago, a newlywed couple came with her parents-in-law to buy gold jewelry. At first, the bride had requirements for gram weight, craftsmanship and appearance, but the mother-in-law disagreed, feeling that it was not worth buying gold now. She picks gold jewellery that looks big, but is actually very low-weight. Like a gold pig card, it looks like a big one, but in fact it is only a thin piece, and it will be deformed after wearing it once. Every time she picks out an ornament, her mother-in-law will ask again, "Is there any thinner?"
Three days later, after the bride was married, she called again and asked if she could sell the gold jewelry. If you take a look, it's all deformed. There will be depreciation expenses for recycling gold, and each gram should be reduced by 10 yuan on the basis of the market price, and when the bride sells gold, the depreciation expenses are reduced, and she also earns more than 100 yuan.
▲ Some gold jewelry at the Amber counter. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
There are fewer people buying gold, but there are many more people selling gold. I also provide gold recycling services for customers, and before there might have been only one person who came to sell gold in two or three days, but now there are seven or eight a day. And it can be seen that many people have searched all corners of their homes and taken out all the "old gold". Someone sent the kind of gold jewelry that was bought in the past eight years, and the style was very "antique" just by looking at it, and the face was covered with a layer of dust.
There is a lot of old gold melted, and I also see the insincere side of the previous businessmen. You don't have to burn it, you don't know what's behind the gold. A boss at the stall next to me melted other people's old gold a few days ago, a big bracelet, and after burning, it was mixed with a pile of soil.
For every 1 gram of gold I recycle, I only make a few dollars. In previous years, it was generally sold at the factory on the same day and exchanged for cash. I didn't dare to press it in my hand at all, for fear that if the price of gold fell again, I would have to lose these few dollars.
Recently, I went to the factory to sell gold, and every time I had to wait in a long line, the queue had to make several turns. In the past, the money could be transferred to the account the next day, but now there are so many gold sellers that the factory's cash flow cannot keep up, and it has to wait two or three days to receive the payment.
Compared with selling gold bars, the profit from recycling gold is really pitiful, so I still keep an eye on the market price every day, watching the price of gold rise from 500 yuan to more than 700 yuan, and now I am "desperate", even if it drops slightly.
However, the gold business is not like other jewelry businesses. I did the math, and now if I sell all the gold I have and don't do it, I just won't lose money.
▲ Exterior picture of Shenzhen Shuibei Market. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
sold two golden beans and made up the registration fee for the public entrance examination
@梦莹 25 years old
Save 20 grams of gold for a year and a half
When I was a sophomore, I fell into the pit of gold. For a while, I would go to a gold store like Chow Tai Fook almost every two or three months, and I simply thought that their design was beautiful and exciting. The living expenses of college students are not much, and they only dare to spend three or four hundred yuan each time to buy a 1-gram transfer bead or a small pendant.
Throughout my college years, I bought less than 4 grams of gold in total, and more to accumulate some knowledge about gold, I began to pay attention to the international gold price.
It was only after graduating that I started to look at gold as an investment. If you buy jewelry, counting the labor cost and brand premium, the cost of 1 gram of gold is more than 500 yuan, which is definitely a loss. Although pure gold bars are more suitable for investment, they are generally sold at a minimum of 10 grams, and a gold bar is nearly 5,000 yuan.
Around October 2022, I bought my first Golden Bean online to test the waters. In order to test whether the online store is reliable, I sold it after a week or so. At that time, I found a random gold recycling point offline, and before I went, I did a week's psychological construction: even if it was fake, the loss was less than 400 yuan.
The recycling process went more smoothly than expected. Weighing, looking at the sample with a magnifying glass, then melting at high temperature, weighing again and checking the authenticity and purity, and finally registering and settlement, the whole process does not exceed five minutes. Golden Beanie is real, because the international gold price has risen a little, and I still made a few dollars. Since then, I've been on a journey to save for gold.
The company pays wages on the 15th of each month. On that day, I would go to see how much money I had left in the previous month, and as long as it was more than 800 yuan, I would go and buy a golden bean. Before, most of the money I had left over was used to buy things I didn't really need. Golden Beanie not only satisfies my shopping cravings, but also allows me to save money, the best of both worlds.
I also bought a rich-looking jewelry box with all my gold jewelry in it, and every time I opened it, it was yellow and full, and I was happy to look at it.
▲ Some of the gold jewelry that Meng Ying saved after work. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
I was looking forward to the price of gold falling, and when the price dropped, I could buy more gold when it was cheap. But gold prices have been rising since late last year. When the price of gold was less than 530 yuan, I only had gold beans to make money, and later it rose to 530 yuan, and those gold jewelry also made money.
In February this year, after receiving the year-end bonus, I resigned from the company and took a leave of absence to prepare for the civil service exam. At the end of March, I planned to apply for a cram school for exam preparation, and the registration fee was 20,000 yuan, and I was still a few hundred yuan short of money at that time, so I thought of selling gold.
I took two golden beans to the offline gold recycling office to sell, the recycling price of 1 gram was 505 yuan, and the two golden beans were sold for more than 1,000 yuan, making a net profit of more than 200.
From October 2022 to now, I have saved a total of 10 Golden Beans. When the price of gold rises to 570 yuan, I plan to sell the remaining half, and if it rises to 600 yuan, I will sell all the gold I have.
After I had no source of income, I didn't dare to open the jewelry box again, and I was afraid that every time I opened it, I couldn't help but chop my hands again. What's more, every time I opened it, I felt a deep sense of remorse: why didn't I buy more at that time!
The property lost 1 million, and it is still the most valuable gold
@小熊 30 years old
Save two catties of gold for ten years
I have spent more than ten years and saved two catties of gold, and if I sell them for money now, I will have more than 500,000 yuan, but I will not touch them easily.
On the road of buying gold, I have been "updating and iterating" my own thinking, and often check other people's gold buying experience on social platforms, for example, if you want to maintain value, you can't buy gold jewelry with too high labor costs.
As an investment, the most valuable thing to hold is gold bars. But I have checked on the Internet before, for married women, buying gold bars is considered the joint property of the husband and wife, and only gold jewelry is considered the woman's separate property. That's why I hardly buy gold bars, only jewellery with very low labor costs and very basic designs. I have a baseline for labor costs in my heart, and the inlay process cannot exceed 40 yuan at most, and once it is exceeded, it will not be considered at all. In this way, if you accumulate it in your hand, you will not lose too much money by 1 gram of gold.
I didn't plan when I bought gold on my own, until three years ago, when my daughter was born. In order to save for my daughter's dowry, I set myself an annual gold purchase plan - to buy at least 20 grams of gold every year. Gold is very special in my heart, it can be said to be an emergency fund, and I will not touch it until it is absolutely necessary. That way, if I had something like bankruptcy, my daughter would at least have gold.
▲ Some of the bear's gold jewelry. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
In fact, I buy a lot more gold every year. Generally, every two or three months, I will buy a large gram weight jewelry, catch up with the year-end bonus or quarterly bonus, and I will definitely take some of the money out to buy gold.
This has also changed my spending habits to a certain extent, I used to buy some luxury bags, but now, every time I want to buy a bag, I use the money to buy a gold bracelet, and put it there to keep the value.
For me, physical gold is not a lucrative way to invest. In terms of the length of ten years, without this sharp rise in the price of gold, its annualized rate would be too low.
But gold is better than stability. In the past 10 years, I have also invested in real estate, bought funds, and speculated in stocks. Those who were able to make money in a short period of time are now losing miserably. Many of my houses were bought at a high price, and now I can't sell them at half price, let alone lose 1 million. In contrast, gold is a highly stable and secure investment.
In addition to physical gold, in 2022, I also spent more than 100,000 yuan to buy paper gold. At that time, the lowest point of buying was 360 yuan per gram, and when it rose to 480 yuan a while ago, I threw it all away, and made more than 100 yuan per gram, making a total of tens of thousands of yuan. At that time, I already felt that I had made a lot of money, but now I think about it: hey, it's still too early.
Lately, I've been really happy every day. When I see the price of gold in the morning, I will quickly calculate in my mind how much the gold on hand has increased. Two catties of gold is very easy to convert, from more than 400,000 at the beginning, to more than 500,000, and then to nearly 600,000 now.
I remember one Friday night, staring at my phone, I couldn't sleep with excitement. On that day, the price of gold rose to 582 yuan. At that time, I thought that if I could fall back to 550 yuan, I would start again, but then it rose again and again, and it never came down.
The gold in my hand is the guarantee of my retirement
@小星 in his 40s
Accumulate at least 600 grams of gold for nearly 20 years
Nearly 20 years ago, I started buying gold, and at first I bought gold jewelry, but then I found that it was not cost-effective to buy jewelry, because I didn't like to wear it, so I bought it and put it there, and secondly, the labor cost of jewelry was very expensive, and it was not cost-effective to invest in it.
I am a full-time housewife, and my husband is an engineering worker and a VIP in many banks. About a few years ago, once, the bank manager called and said: There is a recent event, and the bank can keep it for free if you buy gold bars. Since then, I have been buying a 50-gram gold bar every year, and I will also buy some Panda gold coins weighing a few grams. For a while, I deposited some money with the bank every month, and the bank would help me buy gold.
I didn't care about gold at all, and I left it to the bank. During the New Year's holidays, I just asked the bank to take two gold bars out when I got married. And my mind is on real estate investment. To me, gold is a string of numbers in a bank account. For a long time, I didn't even know how much gold I had in my account.
It was in July last year that Alipay launched a campaign to receive gold beans. If you can grab the most cost-effective 25 yuan voucher, the price of golden beans is even three or four yuan lower than the market price, and the price of gold bought by the benchmark bank, 1 gram directly saves more than 20 yuan.
The golden beans bought by Alipay will be mailed to your home in kind, and a small glass bottle will be included. I still remember the excitement of the first time I opened the parcel, a small yellow piece of gold, and I thought: I must fill the bottle. Alipay issues coupons at half past ten every day, my body has formed a biological clock, almost half past ten, I automatically take out my mobile phone and click on the page to wait for the coupon, as long as I grab it, I will buy it, and even buy several pieces a day.
▲ The golden beans that Xiaoxing saved. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
In less than three months, I saved more than 50 golden beans, and I felt a strong sense of accomplishment when I watched the bottle get full little by little. But later, the coupons became more and more difficult to grab, the mechanism became more and more complicated, and I was no longer satisfied with just buying Golden Beans.
As the real estate market went down, I turned all my attention to gold investing. Watching the price of gold and buying gold has become a daily do. The price in my heart is 480 yuan, but since February 15 this year, the price of gold has exceeded my psychological line, and I have not bought it again.
I've never sold my gold. A long time ago, there was also a rise in the price of gold, and the bank manager advised me to sell it, and I refused at that time, and I planned to hold gold for a long time until the day I retired. I hope to maintain my current material level after retirement, so that I can save more while I am young. Not only the material level, but also the gold may make my life happier in my later years. I have a son, and I often worry about the future relationship between my mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and I have made a plan: if my future daughter-in-law is good to me, I will give her some gold every once in a while, so that my future life can be more worry-free.
Gold is more like my confidence, and for housewives, the money in my hand is a sense of security, so I don't easily touch gold. Today, I have 600 grams of gold on hand, and at the current price of gold, if I realize it, I can have at least 330,000.
Gold went from being a collectible to a safe haven
@节理 30 years old
Save 650 grams of gold for 3 years
Before I returned to China, I kept saving gold as a collection. After returning to China, saving gold became a means for me to hedge against risk.
From 2014 to 2020, I studied abroad in Oceania. He also worked for an Australian pen chain shop. The owner is a very elegant lady who often wears a variety of antique gold jewelry. Originally, I wasn't interested in gold, but after watching her match for a long time, I began to think that gold jewelry was very elegant.
Once, my boss showed me her collection of gold jewellery from various countries. Since then, I have also started collecting gold jewelry. Start with the smaller brooches, which I like Greek and Scandinavian styles, and the price of each brooch ranges from 3,000 yuan to 8,000 yuan.
▲ Part of the gold jewelry collection of joints. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
Not only accessories, but also gold ores. Because the profession is geographically related, in my heart, ore has a unique romance and beauty.
At the end of last year, I bought gold bars once at the mint in Perth, Australia. At that time, the price of 50 grams of gold bars was 4,993.54 Australian dollars, which was 24,427.67 yuan when converted into yuan, which was more than 400 yuan cheaper than the Taobao flagship store of China Gold at that time. However, it is not easy to buy gold from abroad and bring it back to China, if it exceeds 50 grams, it needs to be declared to customs. I checked before buying, and each person has a quota of 5,000 yuan to bring goods from abroad, and I deliberately only bought 5 grams to prevent problems.
When I was abroad, I paid little attention to the price of gold, and for me, gold jewelry was for viewing and collecting, but when I returned to China in 2020, my mind changed. At that time, it was just in time for the epidemic, and many people around me were hoarding items to ward off risks. Under the influence of the general environment, I also began to worry vaguely: whether I should also stock up on something.
At that time, a friend suggested that I could stock up on gold, that gold could retain its value, and that holding gold bars in my hand was a sense of security. In the beginning, I bought a 10-gram gold bar online with the mentality of giving it a try. When the gold bar first arrived, there was only one gold bar and a certificate in the package, and I was afraid that it would be fake, so I specially found a gold recycling point near my home to inspect and sell it directly.
After that time, I learned that gold bars can be sold for money again, and it depends on the price of gold on that day, which is also like a gamble in a way.
I started saving gold in a planned way, buying only gold bars, unlike my collection, which was purely used to preserve value and make money. I originally set myself a goal of buying at least 5 grams a year. But in reality, I buy more than 100 grams almost every year. In three years, I have saved up 650 grams of gold bars.
A while ago, the price of gold rose to 550 yuan, I tried to sell 200 grams, and those gold were just over 400 yuan when I started, and I made a total of nearly 30,000 yuan.
During this time, I checked the gold price three times a day in the morning, noon and evening, and each time I opened the gold price with nervousness and anxiety, whether it was falling or rising, it would cause me to be anxious. If the price of gold really rises to 600 yuan, I will sell all the remaining 450 grams of gold bars, and in that case, I may make another 70,000 or 80,000 yuan.
Once I've sold them all, I probably won't be buying bullion for a long time. It's so tiring to stare at the price of gold every day, thinking about selling it for money.
▲ Jointed cat and her gold collection. Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
(Names have been changed and this article does not constitute any investment advice)
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