Dubai Gold Recommendation.

[dicker]

Hi All

I am heading to Dubai for work shortly and wonder if anyone is able to recommend any good / reliable gold sellers - and products!

Best

Dicker

[Oystonousted]

I visited Dubai recently and the gold souk was very very expensive for almost all PM’s. 
 

Silver bars and coins were priced outrageously and I found only one shop that sold gold bars 2.5g and upwards for a reasonable price. 
 

Cheers 

[Clens92]

What are you hoping to buy?

If you're looking for gold at spot, it's not there.  There is bullion at close to spot, but you have to look for it.

 

[silvernewbie]

If u want gold jewellery i know a few good places, but its obviously not at spot but smaller premiums than here

[silversky]

https://www.alabyadjewellers.com/en/17-gold-coin

Hi Dicker,

These guys came recommended in a very comprehensive guide of every bullion dealer in the UAE.  Sadly the guide is now offline but it was very comprehensive and these guys came out in the top three.  I certainly found them to be helpful.  They weren't gouging like the tourist gold souk.  I really didn't like the gold souk in Dubai.  Far too busy with too much pressure being applied by some of the sellers. Tedious.  The souk in Sharjah which is a small drive away is far more peaceful.  Inside the shop they are calm and relaxed and don't go applying pressure.  At least this was how it was when I was there in 2015.  The price of retail spot is on the wall as set by the authorities every day.  They had cast bars, minted bars and different bullion coins.  You can give them a ring in advance and ask if they have what you want.

Be warned.  Sovereigns tend not to be real in the UAE.  They are locally made copies out of 24ct gold.  Quite obviously not real actually but they do have more gold content as a result.  Not sure what they go for on spot but they might be a cost effective way of buying essentially scrap gold.  I doubt it though.  Forget the airport.  It's outrageous.  In fact I'm amazed they haven't all been charged with usury.

Cheers

[silvernewbie]

Btw in the gold souk u dont have to worry about fakes the authorities are super strict no shop would dare to sell fake gold 

[Chronix]

example, Buffalo 1 ounce gold = 1.767 $  few days ago on Dubai airport

[silversky]

2 hours ago, silvernewbie said:

Btw in the gold souk u dont have to worry about fakes the authorities are super strict no shop would dare to sell fake gold 

I used to believe this but I'm not 100% certain.  I lived in the UAE for 10 years and I understand a little bit about how things work there.  In general this statement is true however there are cases where this is not true.  There used to be a company called gold.ae which was an online bullion dealer in the UAE that had trading services in PM's as well as vaulted physical and physical purchases delivered to your door.  They went bust spectacularly (but quietly) in 2016 and all of the people supposedly holding physical in their vaults got ripped off.  It never existed! Transparency on this sort of crime is very low so it's hard to know who was actually to blame.  It was implied, although shrouded in secrecy, that the owners and/or members of the board had links to higher up in society and it was all quietly swept under the rug.  Only the complaints of people that had lost out made it out into the open online.  Check out a zero hedge article from 5 years ago for the missing dubai gold story.

I actually made a small purchase from them and collected it in person from their offices only a couple of months before this event.  I'm very glad I didn't choose to have them hold it for me!!! They had adverts everywhere and used to supply the gold ATM machines in 5* hotel lobbies etc.  No effect on me but there were others that lost their entire life savings.  White collar crime is in a different category to blue collar crime.  In general, the blue collar dealers in the gold souk would experience the full weight of the law imposed on them if they were caught passing counterfeit goods so it is actually very unlikely to happen.  There are also assay offices where you can go and have your bullion tested so the whole place is generally well set up to prevent that sort of crime at the retail level.

Also, culturally, usury is a serious religious crime.  Although it might seem like a contradiction in a souk where the initial negotiation price is far too high above spot, it is expected that you will negotiate the price down to a reasonable level that would then not constitute usury on their part.  This applies in certain locations but not others and it's frustrating to know where you should haggle and where the price is fixed on spot. I think this is one of the reasons that the authorities publish a retail spot figure daily just to make it obvious to the customer what the underlying value is and allow negotiation around craftmanship for jewellery etc to be on that basis rather than on the monetary value of the metal or mineral.

In general it is true that being passed a fake by a dealer in a souk is a very unlikely event and I actually have a lot of respect for the authorities for making it so.

[Serendipity]

Dubai has been dubbed the “City of Gold” and is so rich in gold that when you order a gold cappuccino it’s not Nescafé you’re getting but literally cappuccino sprinkled with 24-carat gold flakes. Gold is completely non-toxic.

One of the most paradoxical things about Dubai as someone has mentioned is that the sovereigns in the souks tend not to be real. I say paradoxical because at 24-carat the copies actually contain the same quantity of gold as a 22-carat gold sovereign. They’re not doing anything illegal because they’re copies rather than fakes and are marked as such.

There’s a type of beautiful calligraphic Saudi gold coin known as the Saudi Arabian Guinea (Pound) which were minted in the 1950s as an alternative to the British sovereign which is still popular in the Middle East. Unfortunately, all the gold guineas you’ll encounter in the souks and Britain are copies. The American bullion market is more clued up about the Saudi coin and sell the originals.

[Serendipity]

2 hours ago, silversky said:

I used to believe this but I'm not 100% certain.  I lived in the UAE for 10 years and I understand a little bit about how things work there.  In general this statement is true however there are cases where this is not true.  There used to be a company called gold.ae which was an online bullion dealer in the UAE that had trading services in PM's as well as vaulted physical and physical purchases delivered to your door.  They went bust spectacularly (but quietly) in 2016 and all of the people supposedly holding physical in their vaults got ripped off.  It never existed! Transparency on this sort of crime is very low so it's hard to know who was actually to blame.  It was implied, although shrouded in secrecy, that the owners and/or members of the board had links to higher up in society and it was all quietly swept under the rug.  Only the complaints of people that had lost out made it out into the open online.  Check out a zero hedge article from 5 years ago for the missing dubai gold story.

I actually made a small purchase from them and collected it in person from their offices only a couple of months before this event.  I'm very glad I didn't choose to have them hold it for me!!! They had adverts everywhere and used to supply the gold ATM machines in 5* hotel lobbies etc.  No effect on me but there were others that lost their entire life savings.  White collar crime is in a different category to blue collar crime.  In general, the blue collar dealers in the gold souk would experience the full weight of the law imposed on them if they were caught passing counterfeit goods so it is actually very unlikely to happen.  There are also assay offices where you can go and have your bullion tested so the whole place is generally well set up to prevent that sort of crime at the retail level.

Also, culturally, usury is a serious religious crime.  Although it might seem like a contradiction in a souk where the initial negotiation price is far too high above spot, it is expected that you will negotiate the price down to a reasonable level that would then not constitute usury on their part.  This applies in certain locations but not others and it's frustrating to know where you should haggle and where the price is fixed on spot. I think this is one of the reasons that the authorities publish a retail spot figure daily just to make it obvious to the customer what the underlying value is and allow negotiation around craftmanship for jewellery etc to be on that basis rather than on the monetary value of the metal or mineral.

In general it is true that being passed a fake by a dealer in a souk is a very unlikely event and I actually have a lot of respect for the authorities for making it so.

You’ve very brilliantly explained the dilemmas faced when buying gold in Dubai. Gold is gold, of course, but I’m always intrigued by the different mentalities and nuances when buying it either in person or online from different countries. You can easily get ripped off when buying gold from foreign countries unless you’re clued about them up which can only happen in most cases by living in those places for extended periods. I remember once buying what I thought was a 24-carat solid gold Laughing Buddha from a Chinese gold vendor. It was only until I arrived home that I realised it was affixed to its wooden base with Blu Tack. It was actually hollowed out brushed gold!!!

[dicker]

Many thanks everyone.  
 

I am simply interested in buying bullion or coins from national mints. 
 

Will take a look and report back

Best

Dicker

[Bxlsteve]

Hello, 

i wonder if you where to Dubai and what your opinion on gold was. 
how was gold at airport? 
 

many thanks 

On 12/02/2020 at 19:59, dicker said:

Many thanks everyone.  
 

I am simply interested in buying bullion or coins from national mints. 
 

Will take a look and report back

Best

Dicker

 

[dicker]

Hi - I had a good look around, and bought one small item at the Souk

Great choice - esp jewellery!

Best

Dicker

[silvernewbie]

I was at dubai airport last month, bullion was the same price as uk after exchange rate maybe even abit more pricey for 10g bars etc.  However 22ct gold jewellery was much cheaper low premiums v UK