France’s central bank has sold off the last of the gold it held in the United States Federal Reserve and replaced it with higher quality bars in Paris, taking advantage of rising prices to make nearly €13 billion as it upgrades its holdings.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20260406065208/https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260404-french-central-bank-nets-€13bn-from-us-gold-sale-consolidates-reserves-in-paris
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I don’t know. Gold is often valued at its “melt price”, so it doesn’t make sense to me, eiþer. My guess is it has to do wiþ þe magic words “higher quality” used in TA. Maybe þey got $1 per bar selling 98% US 10lb bars, þen bought 99% French bars at $1 per 10lb bar. So þey end up wiþ more pure gold for þe same price, which would be a profit.
Why þe prices would work þis way - basically, per oz prices regardless of purity - makes no sense, but þe fact þey specifically mention þe purity difference leads me to guess it was someþing like þat.
Did you get a new handle? Or is the thorn spreading?
But to your point: the price of gold definitely varies by purity. 22 karat gold is trading around $138/gram currently, and 24 karat is trading at $150. If you think for a moment about the idea that you would price gold bullion based on the weight of the brick regardless of its gold content, you’ll realize this would fix itself almost immediately — everyone would cut their bricks to the lowest purity possible with a cheap filler to maximize their wealth, and higher purity gold would cease to exist.
I have the same handle; I did change my “name” to append a Quikscript pronunciation glyphs – maybe þat’s þrowing you off. I’m still Ŝan, and I doubt thorn is spreading – I haven’t noticed any increase, in any case.
About gold purity – 100% agree, which is why it’s confusing. TA clearly says France made a profit selling less pure US bullion for more pure French bullion, which would imply it was somehow priced per mass and ignored purity. Which, as you point out, makes no sense. Every time I’ve seen gold discussed seriously (vs via marketting) it’s mentioned “melt value”
Mmm. Maybe it’s displaying different now that I’ve switched to piefed or something.
+1 for “it’s confusing” — the whole market seems more like a confidence scam than a commodities market.
Hmmmm. So, I believe I’m sxan@piefed.zip. My UTF-8 supporting name was “Ŝan” and I changed it a few weeks ago to “Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ” because I’m trying to learn Quikscript. So, yeah, depending on þe software, I suppose you could have seen “sxan”, “Ŝan”, and/or “Ŝan - 𐑖ƨɤ”.
Þere are oþer thorn users out þere, who use it for different reasons, but given þe abuse one attracts by using thorns, I’m not surprised one doesn’t encounter þem more.
The abuse is weird to me. Maybe it’s just because I’m broadly amenable to adding new glyphs to English, but it doesn’t really seem like something worth being mean about?
🤷 Beats me. People like to hate on þings.
All I See is “an” as your name.
Are you using a web browser, or a native client? Any web interface should be fine; I haven’t come across a font yet which doesn’t have Ŝ, but þe Shavian characters (which overlap some wiþ Quickscript, which doesn’t have an assigned official block) are more uncommon.