Gold Bars Worldwide

A Database for the Gold Industry.

In 1990, LBMA endorsed an international project to obtain extensive information on LBMA-accredited gold refiners by providing a letter of introduction for Grendon International Research (GIR) to approach the 45 active Good Delivery refiners based in 19 countries.

LBMA encouraged the project because it addressed an information gap. At that time, just three years after its formation, the LBMA’s Good Delivery database was limited to a hard copy file on each refiner, containing correspondence and pictures of Good Delivery bars, mainly provided at the time of accreditation.

Thanks to LBMA’s support, the World Gold Council agreed to act as the major sponsor of the project, and Gold Refiners & Bars Worldwide (a hard-cover volume of 476 pages) was published 18 months later. LBMA’s endorsement resulted in all of the 45 active refiners agreeing to meet GIR, with each one providing photographs, and information on its history and evolution, ownership, methods of refining and assaying, industrial products, gold bars and other services.

The information received was so comprehensive that GIR was able to include a survey and analysis of the modern history of cast and minted gold bars, covering official stamps, weights, dimensions, purities, serial number systems and dates first issued.

The book was the first of several projects, undertaken over 24 years by GIR to expand the industry’s information on gold refiners and gold bars.

One of the most important was the setting up in 1993 of The Industry Collection of Gold Bars Worldwide. This was a joint project between GIR and N.M. Rothschild & Sons (Australia) Ltd which acquired over the next 20 years more than 1,000 standard, unusual and innovative bars (of 1,000 grams and less) from 135 refiners, smelters and issuers in 35 countries.

This project, which LBMA also supported with letters of introduction, enabled GIR to expand the database when new refiners were accredited, and new bars were issued. It also led to exhibitions being staged around the world, including at the Bank of England Museum in 1998, so that the industry and the public could view the bars. By 2013, when the Collection was relocated to Germany to form the core of the new Goldkammer museum set up by Degussa, it had become the world’s largest gold bar collection.

The Industry Catalogue of Gold Bars Worldwide, which was published in 1998, further increased the database by including a high-quality photograph of every cast and minted bar in the Industry Collection (and most London Good Delivery bars) at that time, grouped under 28 categories. For example, bars in gram, ounce, tola and tael weights were covered separately. The Catalogue offered refiners and dealers an easy-to-access reference book.

For decades, the LBMA list of accredited refiners had been relatively static, but from the mid- 1990s, changes, in the form of new accreditations, became increasingly frequent. Rather than produce printed books that would soon be outdated, GIR launched the Gold Bars Worldwide website in 2007. Over a period of eight years, it grew to contain 120 articles on gold refiners and bars (and bullion coins) worldwide, and electronic versions of GIR’s books were also included so that anyone could download them free-of-charge.

Rather than close down the site in 2015, when the author retired, it was reformatted to act as an “historical” site so that the research undertaken over 24 years was not lost. The website is www.goldbarsworldwide.com.

Text courtesy of Nigel Desebrock, ex Grendon International Research, author of Gold Refiners & Bars Worldwide and the Gold Bars Worldwide website.