i order with my local UBS branch... they call me in 1-2 days to collect the stuff and deduct money from UBS account, the rate is the 'ask' price on the date of order

I'm too poor to buy, but my Dad loves doing this sort of thing. Nothing would make him happier than going into a Swiss bank and buying a bar of gold

I'm guessing there is no issue with tax etc if one were to take it back to the UK?

I have been buying 'physical' gold since it was 800 chuffs an ounce it went up to 1450 at one point and it has since dropped but I hear some say that it should really be around 2300 an ounce!!!(who knows how high it could go if becomes the next bubble)
I recommend having it physically in your hand
gold has stood the test of time,
here is a nice comparison that I heard somebody say once of silver
please be aware these are VERY rough figures as I just want to make the point

in the 50's a silver dollar was worth 1 dollar monetarily, it was worth a dollar in weight of silver and it would buy you a gallon of petrol
now the dollar is not made of silver it is just has a value printed on it. But the same weight of silver is still worth a gallon of petrol. The petrol and the silver didn't go up in value the dollar went down.... make sense?

I am storing physical gold as a long term protection of my investment not to make short term profits
www.goldprice.org
is the site I use to monitor the prices, and I buy it from the ubs at the airport....

i might get a small bar too. would make a great paperweight.

wow. look what you can also get from ubs:

credit suisse - go to the teller.

UBS - main branches have a precious metals dept.......

walk in " i want to buy 1kg of gold please" "yes sir that would be xxxxxx chf" pay and walk away with it. simple.

price has dropped recently so keep watching for a time to buy.

Is there somewhere on the UBS website which indicates which branches have the precious metals departments and how to go about ordering gold bars?

If not, I'm sure the staff at any UBS branch can
point you to the right location. For those in Zürich,
it's the one on Bahnhofstrasse. Credit Suisse at
Paradeplatz also sells precious metals.

Update: Perhaps this is what you are looking for?

any branch can order it for you, if they dont have in stock be careful as they will try a fixed price wildly in thier favour.

process - ? just say you want to buy it, its as easy as buying foriegn currency.

Insider tip: the price you pay for gold in a branch is negotiable. When you ask to buy in a branch, they will look up the current price quoted by the bank's internal gold trading desk then add a margin. That margin is profit for the branch and is open to negotiation (but they won't tell you that).

I still think buying metal ETFs are much easier,and less risk of holding and carrying/hiding or selling the phy. metal!

You can buy and sell in seconds on the net, and there are phys. metalls behind garantying the value, and you can even ask to have it's phys. if you want it one day.

Definitely if you're buying for speculation or investment.

I think in this case, some buyers want to have physical gold in their own safe as a fall-back if the financial system itself collapses.
They also might want to have it in a safe and not in an account to keep the wealth away from the eyes of the tax man.

what you forget is that 68% of individual gold purchases are made by tin-foil hat wearers who fear gold confiscation and the meltdown of the financial system and so owning an IOU on gold makes little sense whereas owning physical gold does.

Plus holding a physical bar of gold is quite fun

Don't they sell them in Coop? I think I've seen them at the Bahnhofstrasse store, next to the chocolate isle...

I think that you will find that there are a lot more IOU notes for Gold than actual physical Gold.
When you lend someone money and they give you an IOU note; try giving your IOU note and ask for your money back when they haven't any money or they inform you they have gone personally bankrupt.

this is what happened when the IMF tried to stop the rising price of gold by selling off 200tonnes!!....it was snapped up in one purchase by India........
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/bu...bal/04imf.html

didn't realise the alu barnet was so popular in the colonies...

Yes it is illegal to sell gold bars in the UK, there is a monopoly.

Where do you get this from? Baird & Co for example sell them! and of course buy them...

I think there would be VAT on a bar of gold in the UK as an individual.
I remember that gang that were buying gold in Holland and hiding it in the bumpers of the car; then swapping number plates on an identical car on a day trip to France to get the Gold into the UK and supplying a few Jewlery makers with the Gold VAT free.