May 22, 2014 – Degussa Goldhandel GmbH has acquired ‘The Industry Collection of Gold Bars Worldwide’, the largest and most important collection of contemporary gold bars worldwide. It includes over one thousand culturally and historically important bars of 145 manufacturers from 35 countries and was founded in 1993 by N.M. Rothschild & Sons (Australia) Limited. The collection, which is also often referred to as the ‘Rothschild Collection’, is of important historical and cultural significance for the gold industry as it illustrates the extraordinary variety of gold bars from all over the world.
The total weight of the collection is slightly more than 230 kilogrammes of fine gold, with a pure market value of approximately seven million Euros (approximately ten million US Dollar).
The Australian arm of legendary merchant bank N.M. Rothschild & Sons had been the owner and administrator of the Industry Collection since its establishment in 1993 and held that role until the Rothschild Group withdrew from the gold market in 2004. In 2005 the collection moved into the custodianship of the Western Australian Mint, widely known as ‘The Perth Mint’, with Grendon International Research Pty Ltd acting as the curator, as it had done since 1993.
In addition to the presentations at ‘The Perth Mint’ in Western Australia, the collection has been shown at various exhibitions across Europe, North and South America and Asia during the last twenty years.
The acquisition of the collection will reinforce Degussa’s role as a leading player in the German and international gold and precious metals trading world and further arouse public interest in the topic of gold and precious metals.
‘By acquiring this extraordinary collection, Degussa has made a significant step in expanding the already existing “Degussa Collection”’, says Wolfgang Wrzesniok- Rossbach, CEO of Degussa. ‘We had already accumulated a wide variety of historical bars in the last three years, ranging from artefacts that originate in the Bronze Age, the Roman Empire, the Dark Age and – as one of the highlights – from a number of treasures recovered from sunken ships such as the Atocha, a Spanish galleon that sank in a hurricane off the coast of Florida in 1622.’
As a result of the recent acquisition the Degussa Collection now also offers a most valuable insight in the area of contemporary investment bars from the 20th century. In addition to the Rothschild Collection Degussa has also added a wide variety of other items, like crucibles, doré samples, bar moulds and other periphery objects that illustrate the world of gold production and fabrication per se. Selected pieces from the collection will be shown, among others, at temporary exhibitions in Degussa offices in Germany, Switzerland and England in the future. Besides that, the collection will also be made available on a loan-basis to national and international exhibitors who would be interested in this varied assemblage.
For further information on the Degussa Goldhandel go to the company’s website.
You can learn much more about the Industry Collection by visiting Goldbars Worldwide.