To begin, I admit my ignorance. I did a google and have extracted the following from www.moneyweek.com:

Gold, silver, and platinum are all available in the form of bullion coins, minted in the US, in Canada, South Africa, Austria, Australia, China and other countries. Most bullion coins are minted in 1/10oz, 1/4oz, 1/2oz & 1oz form (and some can be bought in 2oz, 10oz & 1 kilo). However, one ounce gold bullion coins such as Krugerrands are by far the most popular for both small investors and high net worth individuals who like the divisibility afforded by them.

I live in Thailand and have some amount of Thai baht in a bank here - enough to live on for about 3 years. In addition, I receive a monthly pension in US$ that is automatically deposited in a US bank and I have a small investment portfolio in a US firm (US$).

I don't like the financial prospects for either the US or Thailand. So, I would like to put about 30% of my assets into Gold. With so many of the "traditional, solid financial institutions" being exposed as less than solid, if not fraudulent, I am concerned about finding an institution that I can rely upon for an investment in Gold.

Any guidance from an informed Gold investor would be greatly appreciated.

I have seen several members recommend investing in gold. Hope at least one will reply to my post.

Bullionvault.com is a good place, they warehouse gold in secure sites for you in either London, New York or Zurich. They are a big player in gold, and have reasonable commissions etc.

To begin, I admit my ignorance. I did a google and have extracted the following from www.moneyweek.com:

Gold, silver, and platinum are all available in the form of bullion coins, minted in the US, in Canada, South Africa, Austria, Australia, China and other countries. Most bullion coins are minted in 1/10oz, 1/4oz, 1/2oz & 1oz form (and some can be bought in 2oz, 10oz & 1 kilo). However, one ounce gold bullion coins such as Krugerrands are by far the most popular for both small investors and high net worth individuals who like the divisibility afforded by them.

I live in Thailand and have some amount of Thai baht in a bank here - enough to live on for about 3 years. In addition, I receive a monthly pension in US$ that is automatically deposited in a US bank and I have a small investment portfolio in a US firm (US$).

I don't like the financial prospects for either the US or Thailand. So, I would like to put about 30% of my assets into Gold. With so many of the "traditional, solid financial institutions" being exposed as less than solid, if not fraudulent, I am concerned about finding an institution that I can rely upon for an investment in Gold.

Any guidance from an informed Gold investor would be greatly appreciated.

Buy gold jewelry like rings, in BKK gold coins are available but are scarce. But Jewelry is usually interchangeable for cash all over Thailand in goldsmiths shops.

another way is to purchase small gold bars in Bangkok and store them in either a safety deposit box at a bank or in a safe at home.

I've been buying and selling Gold Bars in Thailand for a while now. I'm doing this to make a little extra cash. I recomend buying gold bars from Huasengheng gold shops. They have many sizes of gold bars and they are the most trusted gold Brand in Thailand. They also have different branches around Bangkok. You will have no troube selling gold bars from them to any shop in Thailand unlike other brand of gold bars they may be harder to sell. I learned this the hard way. Here is the website for Huasengheng Gold shops. http://www.huasengheng.com/ . I also recommend not to buy jewlery. When you sell you won't get the same trade in amount as gold bars. Say you were selling 1 ounce of jewlery vs one ounce of gold bars, the difference is about 600baht an ounce. Which means you will lose 600baht per ounce if you bought jewlery. So if your not going to wear the jewlery stick with gold bars. I purchased B1,000,000 in gold bars a while back and made a pretty good return, just over B200,000. I also used a safety deposite box from a bank. I recommend using a safety deposite box vs keeping it in a safe at home. Choose a good bank you feel safe with and you shoulden't have any worries. The only thing is it's hard to get a safety deposite box they are in high demand. You might have to search around a bit.