Costco's 1 oz. bars selling for $2,000. Is this fool's gold?
I didn’t get any gold bars for Christmas. But maybe you did, particularly if your loved ones shopped at Costco, where the metal that made Fort Knox famous is now something you can buy right along with the 48-pack of Bud Light and the 12-gallon drum of soy sauce.
Who says America is in decline?
“Costco sells more than just toilet paper, office supplies and food items, and the company is quite effective at it,” wrote CNN Business. “A 24-karat 1 oz. Gold Bar PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna Veriscan was listed as sold out on Costco’s site this week and bars usually sell out hours after being posted on Costco’s website, according to chief financial officer Richard Galanti.”
OK, so nobody’s going to confuse CNN with Faulkner, but you get the idea. To decode, PAMP is a Swiss precious metal refiner; Lady Furtuna, a Roman Goddess of prosperity; Veriscan, no clue.
The thing looks like a pendant with the goddess etched into a gold rectangle. So this is, I guess, an investment you can wear, which is fine if your idea of high style is wearing a U.S. Treasury Bill around your neck.
Sadly, our country is at a point where I can totally see this happening. I’m sure there is a hedge fund manager somewhere who has wallpapered his billiard room in Microsoft stock.
“The wholesale retailer began selling gold online in September and 1 oz. gold bars on Friday were going for $2,069.99, with a limit of two bars per Costco membership,” CNN says. “According to the Costco website, the non-refundable gold comes ‘in a sealed black assay card’ and is ‘individually stamped with a unique serial number.’”
Wouldn’t it be cool if they sold their rotisserie chickens that way? “Yes ma’am, here’s your chicken and here’s your certificate of authenticity so you can be sure it’s not a duck.”
I am a proud card-carrying member of Costco, but rather than go there for myself, I’m more interested in watching other people shop. There’s something about watching people pushing carts the size of a container ship buying a grain elevator’s worth of white rice that I can’t pry my eyes away from.
Yet I feel a little let down by Costco. I’ve always felt it was a pretty above-board company, but I equate gold sales with talk radio and doomsday preppers with basements full of bottled water and dried pinto beans.
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It’s also a mystery what good a gold bar does you in the event of the apocalypse. There's no food, no electricity, no gasoline — your family is starving and some filthy barrel picker on the corner is selling a grilled rat on a stick, and all you have is a sack of gold bars.
What are you supposed to say? “Uh sir, do you have change for a PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna Veriscan?” I mean, if you have $2 million in gold bars in your bunker, good for you, but as a matter of practicality I don’t see how it helps.
But a lot of people think differently, since Costco reports that it sold $100 million worth of gold bars last quarter. Take that, Blackbeard. All Costco needs is an eyepatch and a parrot to complete the look.
“Costco’s success in selling gold comes as the company continues to report strong profits from the pandemic in 2020, when customers rushed to stores to load up on groceries and household staples,” CNN said.
That never made any sense to me. We better stock up, because we’re going to die? Even if you do, that’s going to be small comfort to your heirs, who will be left to figure out what they’re supposed to do with a 100-year supply of Frosted Flakes.
Even Lady Fortuna would think that’s a waste.
Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Costco 24k bar for sale, but is it fool's gold if you buy it?
