Germans taste machines with Midas touch

Long attracted to the safety of solid gold, Germans will soon be able to sate their appetite for the yellow metal as easily as buying a chocolate bar after plans were announced on Tuesday to install gold vending machines in airports and railway stations across the country.

The venture by the TG-Gold-Super-Markt company, based near Stuttgart, aims to build on soaring retail interest in gold purchases after a loss in confidence in a range of other investments as a result of the financial crisis.

“German investors have always preferred to hold a lot of personal wealth in gold, for historical reasons. They have twice lost everything,” said Thomas Geissler, the owner of the company, who hopes to install “Gold to go” machines in 500 locations in German-speaking countries this year.

“Gold is a good thing to have in your pocket in uncertain times.”

A prototype vending machine on display in Frankfurt Airport on Tuesday appeared to be a converted version of the dispensers typically used to sell snacks. For €30 airport shoppers could buy a 1g wafer of gold, with a larger 10g bar priced on Tuesday at €245 and gold coins also on sale.

When the Financial Times bought the cheapest product it was dispensed in an oblong metal box labelled “My Golden Treasure”, with a certificate of authenticity signed by Mr Geissler but no receipt and the wrong change. Mr Geissler said he hoped to have a more advanced prototype available this month.

Gold prices from the machines – about 30 per cent higher than market prices for the cheapest product – will be updated every few minutes.

A camera on the machine monitors transactions for money laundering controls, Mr Geissler said.

Interest in gold has soared during the financial crisis and Germany was last year the “star performer” in retail physical investment in gold – coins and bars – according to GFMS, the London-based precious metals consultancy. Retail demand reached an estimated 108 tonnes in 2008, up from 36 tonnes in 2007 and 28 tonnes in 2006.

Jens Willenbockel, an investment banker who saw the machine while passing through the airport, said he believed there could be a market. “Because of the crisis there is a lot of awareness of gold,” he said. “It is also a great gift for children – for them getting gold is like a fairytale.”