Paid in Gold?

[mattattack007]

I'm working on a character who's a high-end thief and I got the idea that he likes to be paid in gold bars. I figure other expensive metal would work as payment, but I would first like to know if this is plausible. If not, I would like to work around that.

Thanks

[James Berkley]

i guess, granted the value of gold changes with time, and most of the "gold" that is traded is in paper fourm.

[Jowettc]

Why bars - bloody heavy if you ask me. If I were a thief, I'd like to be paid in diamonds thanks - small, very expensive, lightweight, easy to hide and also very good at keeping their value.

[Cogito]

Many people invest in gold even now, under the theory that it's a more stable currency than most others. Whether or not their assumption is correct is irrelevant.

However, gold in large quantities is tracked. The thief's holdings would not be known, but those paying him might come under scrutiny that could help lead to the thief's capture.

[minstrel]

As Jowettc said, gold is very heavy. Not the sort of thing you can just shove into your pockets and walk away with in any appreciable quantity. Diamonds or other precious stones would be more valuable per pound and far easier to transport.

[mammamaia]

ditto all the above... gold bars seems too hard to make work... precious gems make much better sense...

[James Berkley]

ok i guess part of the issue is how mutch are we talking? right now the spot on gold ( NY) is 1653.80 a troy oz. if we are talking about small sums ( few thousand dollers) then a few of those troy oz bars or oz coins makes sense.

[Joey Batz]

What type of setting are you working with? A fantasy or medieval type setting? Perhaps a small pouch filled with the local currency, gold coins. In a modern day setting, perhaps the thief had a specific request to be paid in rare gold US dollars that have been, for the most part, recalled by the US Treasury and melted down (I think a site called cheapslabs.com would have information on specific coins if you really wanted to go into detail). Otherwise, perhaps the thief and the client would utilize what the spycraft world calls a "dead drop", which is where someone drops a package or message in an inconspicuous place (telephone booth, under a park bench, etc.) and the other person picks it up. Perhaps they use a dead drop for the thief's payment.

[dave_c]

if its old world then gold bars (small ones) would be a good idea, play with the size of the bar though, have them chocolate bar sized rather than the standard size. this allows them to be portable and lighter

in modern day, id avoid it because 1. who would agree to that method of payment? 2. gold is tracked 3. why would he want to be payed in gold when there are much more secretive ways of doing it (unless he has a use for the gold OTHER than finacial.

hope that helps

[CrimsonReaper]

Do something symbolic and less easy to trace. In the movie Ninja Assassin the ninjas required a payment of 100 pounds of gold (odd since pounds are not the unit of weight of ancient japan but whatever) to kill someone. In modern times they required a payment equivalent to that amount, which was how an agent tracked them down. She figured out a rather odd money transfer from Russia PRECISELY matched the value of 100 pounds of gold on the current market.

[GillySoose]

Gold bars sound a little iffy, but maybe there's ways to make it plausible. Feels like no matter the setting, historical or modern, bars would kinda be a hassle to convert to other forms of currency (people getting suspicious how he got into possession of so much gold, etc), but perhaps he wants gold ingots because he melts them down himself to make "counterfeit" coins so they're harder to track or something. That is, if he wants the gold for its monetary value in the first place.

[Langadune]

As mentioned above, plausibility depends on motivation and setting. Why does he want it that way and when/where is this happening?

[Cogito]

Gold-pressed latinum.