Talk:Good Delivery

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Proposed move

I propose moving this page to Good Delivery, which is an industry term that is more encyclopedic than the rather awkward London Good Delivery bar. Good Delivery applies not just to bars, but to an entire set of industry practices. Appleseed (Talk) 23:33, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Size and weight of bar seem to be inconsistent with the density of Au

The caption of the image at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Delivery#/media/File:Gold_bullion_2.jpg states that this bar weighs 12.4 kg or 27.3 lb.

I estimate (positions of the hands, length of finger joints in relation to sides of the bar, etc.) that the dimensions of the pictured bar are approximately 2 inches x 3 inches x 10 inches = 60 cubic inches. The density of high-purity gold is 19.3 g/cubic centimeters or 0.697 lb/cubic inch.

60 cubic inches x 0.697 lb/cubic inch = 41.8 lb or 19.0 kg, which is ~53% higher than published. Since I was trying to be conservative in my dimension estimates, I believe that the weight of the bar is more like 50 lb.

How reliable is the link between the data and the image?

Can someone else check this out and let me know what you think?

Mike

Measuring the photos gives rough dimensions of the bar as: length 750 pixels (px), breadth 150 px, and depth 100 px. The four fingers of the left hand holding the bar are 250 px wide. The Palm_(unit) is equal to four digits or fingers. So the bar is 3 palms by 0.6 palms by 0.4 palms. And 1 palm is three inches or 7.62 centimetres, so we get roughly 23 cm x 4.6 cm x 3.0 cm, or 317 cm³. (I.e., 9 in by 1.8 in by 1.2 in, or 19 in³). With a density of 19.30 g/cm³, this estimate makes the bar about 6120 g or 197 troy ounces.

So it seems we can estimate the bar to be anything at all.

I imagine that the bar lies in the specified weight range (350–430 troy ounces, 11–13 kg), regardless of what we come up with. I wouldn't worry about it.Ingafube (talk) 15:00, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delivery not guaranteed quote

The following section was originally added to the article's lead by 108.185.164.153 on July 30. I removed it, but the removal was reverted by Ingafube (talk · contribs). I've moved the quote here in order to discuss it.

US commodity contracts do not guarantee delivery of gold and silver. All other commodities may be force-delivered instead of simply being settled with a credit to account. Since 2012, US account commodities traders asking for delivery have been routinely denied physical delivery and paid with credit to account. This is not usually an issue because CBOT and COMEX gold and silver trading has become primarily a derivatives market, since fund managers mostly never intend to take delivery.

First of all: Is there a reliable source for this? Unattributed statements don't belong on Wikipedia, per WP:V. Secondly, this article is primarily about a set of rules regarding size and fineness of gold bars. What has delivery to do with this article (other than appearing in the name)? Gabbe (talk) 08:27, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First, the bars are precisely specified because they are used to back futures contracts traded on exchanges. "To make trading possible, the exchange specifies certain standardized features of the contract" (Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives, 6th ed., J. C. Hull). The Good Delivery specifications exist "because it is the possibility of final delivery that ties the futures price to the spot price." (Hull, again) The Good Delivery specification and the contracts are very closely connected and so reference to contract anomalies is appropriate. Linking the relevance of the Good Delivery specifications to the role gold bars play in the financial markets more broadly (i.e., futures contracts) is certainly a useful addition to the article.

Second, are traders being denied delivery? A Forbes article has this: “I know there’s talk in the gold community that there could be a run on the gold stocks, but the exchange would just declare a force majeure and liquidate you." [1] And there was indeed a case of "force majeure" at a CME physical gold storage facility, which voided contracts in 2012 [2][3]. Whether or not delivery is regularly denied, I'm not yet certain, but we can use these sources to improve the current paragraph.

Also here are CME's rules regarding delivery: "Gold (GC) futures are physically delivered upon expiration. For additional details on delivery, please see the NYMEX Rulebook (Chapter 113) [4]" The CME's good delivery standards are different from the LME's, we might like to write about that in the article.

Overall, I think complete removal of the paragraph regarding contracts and delivery is wrong, but we should certainly improve it.Ingafube (talk) 09:43, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]