Vacuum Lifting Device

In the London market, vault operators are renowned for the strength of their hands and arms. The weight of large gold bars at just over 12 kg may seem trifling compared with the 30-kg silver bars that many of the London vaults also store. Nevertheless, the day-to-day work in an active vault can be extremely arduous. The movement of bars from incoming pallets to weighing scales and the making-up of batches for shipment can lead to muscle strain. So, especially in an era of health and safety consciousness, some vaults have installed vacuum lifting devices like the one shown here in the Bundesbank vault. These devices are particularly useful for moving US Assay Office bars, which are more physically challenging to handle, because of their brick shape, than the ingot-shaped London Good Delivery bar, shown here, with its undercut on the end and side surfaces to facilitate handling.