250g Gold Bar Heimerle und Meule (cast)
€30,868.64
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Available in 3–4 business days
Gold Bars 250 g
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Are you a fan of the traditional, smooth and finely shaped cast gold bars? In our shop you will find exclusively 250g gold bars in cast form. We appreciate the distinct individuality of each bar, whose casting does not have to be exactly uniform. Your gold bar is therefore as unique as you are. You deserve it.
Only 1 left to order
250g Gold Bar Degussa
€31,501.84
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Available in 3–4 business days
250g Gold Bar Heraeus
€31,012.55
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Available in 2–3 business days
250g Gold Bar Argor Heraeus
€31,032.70
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Available in 2–3 business days
250g Gold Bar Valcambi
€31,021.19
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Available in 4–5 business days
250g Gold Bar C. Hafner
€32,011.28
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Available in 2–3 business days
250g Gold Bar Umicore (Cast Bar)
€31,032.70
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Available in 2–3 business days
Sold out
250g Gold Bar PAMP Suisse
€31,018.31
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currently not available
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250g Gold Bar Schloss Güldengossa
€31,142.07
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currently not available
In Shanghai, the kilo bar is the unit.
The Shanghai Gold Exchange delivers its Au99.99 contract in bars of one kilogram. Each of these bars has a fineness of at least 999.9/1,000.
“The Exchange shall only provide whole bars and ingots for withdrawal, and will not offer to cut or exchange any bars or ingots.”
Shanghai Gold Exchange, Detailed Delivery Rules of 2019, Article 36
Based on the Detailed Delivery Rules of the Shanghai Gold Exchange of 2019, Annex 1 and Article 14, and its product page for Au99.99. The 100 tick marks are calculated: 1,000 grams per bar, 10 grams per lot.
This contract is traded in lots of 10 grams. Whoever withdraws gold from the exchange’s vault, however, receives it only as a whole bar. By calculation, that is 100 lots for one kilo bar.
Kilo bars may go into any vault the exchange has certified. The large bars of 12.5 kilograms are accepted only in its vaults in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Refineries recognised by the LBMA, the association of the London precious metals market, may also deliver. The gold and silver exchange in Hong Kong also has its own contract for the kilo bar of 999.9/1,000.
Valcambi 1 kg gold barValcambi 1 kgCast bar, 117 × 53 mm117 × 53 mmFine gold 999.9/1,000999.9/1,000
A common frame for the kilo bar.
In the London wholesale market, the kilo bar does not count as a standard bar. For the kilo bar of 999.9/1,000 there is a separate specification, endorsed by the LBMA, the association of the London precious metals market, and by the gold exchange in Shanghai.
It sets out a frame: 80 to 120 millimetres long, 40 to 60 millimetres wide and 7 to 14 millimetres high, rectangular and weighing at least 1,000 grams.
“Specifications are for cast bars.”
LBMA and Shanghai Gold Exchange, specifications for the kilo bar of 999.9/1,000
Outlines according to the makers: Heraeus 116 × 51, Degussa 117 × 51, Valcambi 117 × 53, Argor‑Heraeus 117.5 × 52 millimetres. Heraeus, Degussa and Argor‑Heraeus state the height, Valcambi does not. The identity card in the card format ID‑1. At the same scale, not at a scale of 1:1.
Four details belong on each of these bars: the refiner’s stamp, a serial number, the weight and the fineness to four digits. Every bar leaves the refinery with a certificate of analysis, and no serial number may be issued a second time.
In length and width, the kilo bars from Heraeus, Degussa, Valcambi and Argor‑Heraeus fall within this frame. According to the makers, they measure 116 to 117.5 by 51 to 53 millimetres.
For comparison, an identity card: it is 85.6 millimetres wide and 54 millimetres high. So these kilo bars are roughly as wide as the card is high, and about three centimetres longer than it is wide.
Argor‑Heraeus 1 kg gold barArgor‑Heraeus 1 kgCast bar, 117.5 × 52 mm117.5 × 52 mmFine gold 999.9/1,000999.9/1,000
One London bar is enough for about twelve kilo bars.
The London gold trade works in large bars of 350 to 430 fine ounces of gold. The World Gold Council calls them 400‑ounce bars. By calculation, 400 fine ounces are 12.44 kilograms of fine gold, enough for twelve kilo bars.
“… the shipment and transformation, on an epic scale, of 400oz London Good Delivery (LGD) bars into smaller denominations more suitable for consumers’ pockets.”
World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends Full year 2013
Seen from above, at the same scale. The large bar in the middle of the dimensions the LBMA permits: 250 by 70 millimetres on top, 35 millimetres high, about four times as high as a kilo bar of 9 millimetres. Weights calculated at 31.1035 grams per fine ounce.
That is how the World Gold Council described the year 2013. At the time, much gold went from western vaults via refineries in North America, Switzerland and Dubai to Asia and the Middle East.
In the assessment of Thomson Reuters GFMS, the large bars went mainly through Swiss refineries and were converted there into kilo bars or smaller bars. According to its customs statistics, Switzerland exported 2,777 tonnes of gold that year, Reuters reported in February 2014.
Two formats meet here: London stores large bars, while in Shanghai, Hong Kong and India the kilo bar is one of the usual sizes.
India reckons in kilo bars and in tola.
Around two‑thirds of the gold India imports arrives as cast kilo bars of 995.0/1,000 or as 100‑gram bars. So the World Gold Council wrote in 2021. In the year before, the largest supplier was Switzerland.
There is a weight for gold and silver there that is older than the gram: the tola. Its name comes from the Sanskrit word tulā, “a balance”. That is what the Anglo‑Indian dictionary Hobson‑Jobson records, in its edition of 1903.
The balance is schematic, its tilt not to scale. Valcambi states the footprint of both bars, not their height. Calculated at 0.06479891 grams per grain, the value of the grain since 1959.
In 1833 the tola was fixed in British India at 180 grains, the weight of a silver rupee. In 1939 a law laid down the tola of 180 grains for the whole of British India, in force from 1 July 1942. By calculation, that is 11.66 grams.
By calculation, a bar of ten tola weighs just over 116.6 grams, about a sixth more than a 100‑gram bar. Valcambi in Switzerland still casts it today. At Valcambi, both bars have the same footprint of 26 by 44 millimetres. The extra weight of the tola bar lies in its height.
On 1 October 1958, India officially began to use the metric system. In 2003, Indian customs expressly set tola bars apart from bars that carry their weight in grams or kilograms and a serial number. In trade, the tola lives on: in the Emirates, according to an LBMA report, bars for private buyers range from 1 gram up to 10 tola.
Valcambi 100 g gold barValcambi 100 gCast bar, 44 × 26 mm44 × 26 mmFine gold 999.9/1,000999.9/1,000
Two ways to a cast bar.
Large gold bars are mostly cast. For its large gold bars, the LBMA permits exactly two methods, both with moulds of graphite or cast iron.
“… either by the conventional method of pouring molten metal into them; or non‑conventional method of melting grain in an induction tunnel system …”
LBMA, Good Delivery List Rules, January 2022, section 2.1.2
Schematic, after the Rand Refinery for open casting and the equipment maker Italimpianti for the tunnel furnace.
In open casting, the caster directs a soft gas flame onto the gold in the mould until the top has solidified. In this way the bar cools from the bottom upwards, no shrinkage cavities remain, and the flame polishes the surface at the same time. Then the bar goes into the water bath. That is how a description of the Rand Refinery in South Africa from the 1980s puts it.
In the tunnel furnace, the gold already lies in the graphite mould as grain. A pusher moves the moulds into the melting zone, where induction melts the gold, and then over a water‑cooled plate, usually under nitrogen instead of air. Each bar weighs as much as the grain that lay in its mould, so the grain is weighed beforehand. That is how the equipment maker Italimpianti describes it.
Stamping comes only after casting. At the Rand Refinery in the mid‑1980s, the large bars waited for the laboratory result first, and only then was their fineness stamped in.
Sources: Shanghai Gold Exchange, Detailed Delivery Rules (amended November 2019) and product page Au99.99; Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society, “Trading Method”; LBMA and SGE, “Specifications for a 1kg 9999 Gold Bar”; LBMA, “The OTC Guide”, chapter London Good Delivery; LBMA, Good Delivery List Rules, January 2022; LBMA, “Spotlight on the UAE”, August 2022; World Gold Council, “Gold Demand Trends Full year 2013” and “Bullion trade: India gold market series”, December 2021; Reuters, “Switzerland’s physical gold exports head for Asia”, 20 February 2014; H. Yule and A. C. Burnell, Hobson‑Jobson, new edition by W. Crooke, London 1903, entries Tola and Seer; Standards of Weight Act, 1939; OIML Bulletin, July 2024; Government of India, Customs Notification No. 28/2003 and explanatory notes to the budget 2003/04; Fisher, “Refining of Gold at the Rand Refinery”, in “The Extractive Metallurgy of Gold in South Africa” (SAIMM); LBMA, The Alchemist, issue 85; Italimpianti, T‑Barmaster tunnel furnace; Valcambi, Cast Bars and Minted Bars; data sheets from Heraeus, Degussa, Argor‑Heraeus and Heimerle + Meule; ICAO, Doc 9303, Part 5, card format ID‑1. Images: melting furnace of the U.S. Mint San Francisco, U.S. National Archives, NAID 296574, public domain; four kilo bars from the shop’s product photos on a background that, like the beam balance, was generated with AI.
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250 g Gold Bar