Trading in Gold

Is it possible to invest in Trading Gold? I know that mines normally either produce annual revenue or bullion. And presumably the revenue option covers normal "trading" in the ore (the profits from its handling). But might a Trade Investment in the process increase its profitability??

Pass. Rozwi has a gold mine, but I haven't thought of something like this so have never tried. Would this be something like a commercial economic scheme? (not that I, actually, know what that means )

I was thinking of something like "dealing" in gold - buying it at lower rates from one source and selling it on at a higher rate to another???

In realistic terms, yes. The total lack of price transparency and readily accessible mark to market prices mean traders in 18th century bullion would have been able to make serious profits. Gold has been an asset hedge that goes back to the ancient times.
Are the game mechanics set up for someone running price arbitrage? Not so sure, as it would imply some serious modelling by Richard. Although, I think Richard may actually be running some fairly interesting models on ‘the world economy’. Could be worth investigating, no harm.

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Arbitrage only works if there is both a notable difference in price/value and you can afford to do the transporting to extract that price difference. So it seems like this would be limited to a few of the global maritime powers having the capacity to do this well.

Even then, it seems too specific a market to invest in separately to me.

You could ask advisors, of course.

In Scotland a few years back (LGDR) I invested in gold that had been found by prospectors. Investing more than £10k wasn't really going to be worth it so....

Yes, I have noticed that sometimes your prospectors find very small deposits that you are warned can only support an investment of 10K and 1,000 men. Would be curious to see how much bullion that pulls out. Not much I'd imagine!

On the other hand, historically large silver/gold production in Spain was actually not all that great for Spain as it weakened the whole economy and led to inflation. I don't know if Richard really plays this all out in his economy models or not, but I've always been hesitant as a consequence to lean too much on gold/silver for national income. You want to actually be producing real goods.

How Spanish Silver Didn't Make Spain Wealthy

As far as I know you can invest in mining gold & then say if you wish it to become a trade good or if you want a yearly bullion income from it, problem with bullion is you need to transport it to a Mint to get it made into coinage for your treasury.

However if at some point you want to revalue your currency then having the bullion in your vaults can help as you can mint it direct into the new valuation & save costs.

Having never used it as a trade investment I can't honestly say what kind of returns you will get on it, it maybe worth inverting in a gold jewellry trade, rather than just plain gold trade.

I've been mining gold bullion & investing in trade gold. i have to say that the first has been a disappointing experience. The second has not been of big impact on my economy, but maybe was my worst luck and Spain provides a better benchmark

I hada gold mine in the Urals in Russia it was quite profitable for a number of years then started to decine, but I shiped my back to Moscow and did trade in gold in Europe

But wouldn't it be safer to get the gold, smelt it into smallish bars and stick it in vaults, just in case you need the gold income later, since it doesn't lose its value. The same for silver. Crafting some into crafted items it my view would make for trade goods and one can argue their mines are small so that is the best way to make money. Just some thoughts.

You can invest in goldsmithing without putting any of your bullion into it. There is even a research advance in one of the rulebooks for better goldsmithing tools.

If you have a bullion mine, I do think you're generally better off to sit on the bullion and not use it.

Kingmaker wrote:I hada gold mine in the Urals in Russia it was quite profitable for a number of years then started to decine, but I shiped my back to Moscow and did trade in gold in Europe

well, at the moment my urals aren't worth the effort

I used all the techs tho which helped me get more

Ref Spainish Mines in G7 how I have arranged things are:

80% trade......well we would not want to run into a shortage of Silver Spurs, Snuff boxes, Wine Coolers, Jewellery, Church Candles or the odd shaped blocks of silver which fund so much of the worlds trade with China (and the rest of the Worlds huge trade defecit with China in this period).

20% or the historic Royal fifth goes as Bullion to the Crown......or to be exact the Royal Bank of the America's which mints into into nice new shiny coins showing the handsome image of his most Catholic Majesty Charles von Hapsburg Rex Hispania:D

These coins are then lent out by the Bank funding a small but regular increase in the money supply which in the probably mistaken belief that a small increase in money supply plus moves to increase production is good for the economic health (too large a increase leads to major inflation = Bad).

Plus funding my massive losses on the provision of banking, insurance and other financial services to Spanish Merchants. Basically I think Richard just treats it as a subsidy to Spanish Trade & Industry.

Historically, large profits could be made on the value of Silver being higher in China than in the rest of the world. But since the same is true the other way round for Chnese Silks, Tea and Porcelain I assume this is all lumped into in game "Trade."

But at least G7 Spain is kind to Pirates, Privateers and Naval Crews with Prizes in allowing the interesting cargo rather than the boreing "General Cargo" some others have to put up with. G7 English Navy had huge amounts of fun and games with trying to work out what to do with a huge amount of captured Spanish Wine..........stories that half the Navy were drunk as lords when the Dutch poured up their gang planks and captured them in a Scots port and what they had been drinking are currently not proved.