How this price is calculated
There is no separate exchange quote for individual alloys. Every karat price is derived from the fine gold rate, and the arithmetic is fully open:
Every figure on this page comes from exactly this formula.
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What 999 gold actually is
A fineness of 999 means 999 parts of gold in 1,000 parts of alloy. Colloquially that is 24 karat, although 24 karat would arithmetically be 1,000/1,000 — an absolute purity that cannot be achieved industrially. The remaining 0.1 % is residual silver or copper from the refining process.
In practice you will see two markings: 999 (three nines) and 999.9 (four nines). The difference is 0.09 % of intrinsic value and is irrelevant to price. Both count fully as investment gold. Modern coins such as the Maple Leaf, Philharmonic and Britannia are struck in 999.9; older bar stock is often 999.
Physically, fine gold is soft and extremely ductile: density 19.32 g/cm³, melting point 1,064 °C, Vickers hardness only 25–30 HV. A fingernail leaves marks. That is precisely why fine gold is almost never made into rings or chains worn daily — it is an investment and industrial metal, not a jewellery material.
Where you encounter 999 gold in Germany
Bars. The standard route into physical gold. Common sizes run from 1 g through 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 250 g up to the 1 kg bar. German and Swiss refiners — Heraeus, C. Hafner, Umicore, Degussa, Argor-Heraeus, Valcambi — dominate. Small bars up to 100 g normally come in a sealed blister card with a printed serial number and assay certificate.
Bullion coins. Maple Leaf (Canada), Vienna Philharmonic (Austria), Britannia (UK) and Kangaroo (Australia) are struck in 999.9. The Krugerrand is the well-known exception: the classic coin is 916 gold, with fine-gold issues added from 2017.
Industry. Bonding wire in semiconductor manufacturing, contact surfaces in connectors and aerospace coatings use fine gold for its corrosion resistance and conductivity. Small in volume, but price-insensitive.
Asian-market jewellery. In India, China and Southeast Asia fine gold is also worn as jewellery, deliberately as wearable savings. Such pieces are noticeably soft and bend easily; in Germany they are handled almost exclusively through scrap gold buyers.
Buying 999 gold: what actually drives your price
Intrinsic value is identical across every dealer — it follows the spot rate. What differs is the premium: the mark-up for minting, packaging, logistics and margin. It falls sharply with unit size. Rough German market bands: 1 g bar 8–12 %, 10 g around 4–6 %, 100 g roughly 2–3 %, 1 kg bars often under 1.5 %. Putting €1,000 into ten 1-gram bars instead of one 10-gram bar easily gives away a mid-two-figure euro amount at purchase.
Anonymity threshold. Since 1 January 2020 the ceiling for anonymous cash purchases of precious metals in Germany is €2,000 (previously €10,000). Above that the dealer must verify and record your identity under anti-money-laundering law. The purchase remains legal and unlimited — it is simply no longer anonymous.
Checking a dealer. Look for a price tied live to spot, a written quote showing the premium separately, a physical business address and a named manufacturer. Bars from well-known LBMA-accredited refiners are the easiest to resell at the smallest discount — that is not prestige, it is money at the exit.
Selling 999 gold: realistic payout
Fine gold carries the tightest spread in the entire precious metals trade. For standard bars and bullion coins with certificate, German buyers typically pay 97–99.5 % of intrinsic value. No refining charge applies because the material does not need reprocessing — the buyer resells it unchanged.
What lowers the price: missing original packaging, opened blisters, unknown manufacturers, scratches on bullion coins, or pieces from abroad with no traceable origin. Where fine gold cannot be identified — melted material, or jewellery without a mark — the buyer will require an assay and treats the piece as scrap, with a correspondingly larger 3–8 % discount.
Always compare at least two quotes and insist on a breakdown: the fine gold rate used, weight in grams, discount in percent. A buyer quoting only a lump sum makes comparison impossible — usually by design.
What a dealer actually pays out
Intrinsic value is the ceiling, not the payout. Buyers deduct refining charges and keep a trading margin. The range below is realistic for this fineness:
| Item | per gram | for 10 g |
|---|---|---|
| Intrinsic value (fine gold content) | €122.73 | €1,227.29 |
| Realistic payout — upper end −0.5 % | €122.12 | €1,221.15 |
| Realistic payout — lower end −3.0 % | €119.05 | €1,190.47 |
Rule of thumb: get at least two written quotes and watch the item being weighed. A reputable buyer states the fine gold rate used, the weight in grams and the deduction as separate lines — a single lump sum is impossible to compare.
German tax treatment of 999 gold
No VAT (§ 25c UStG). Investment gold is VAT-exempt. It is defined as bars of at least 995/1000 fineness, and gold coins of at least 900/1000 minted after 1800 that are or were legal tender in their country of origin and are sold at no more than 180 % of their gold value. 999 gold always meets the bar test. You pay 0 % VAT — unlike silver, where 19 % or the margin scheme applies.
Tax-free profit after one year (§ 23 EStG). Physical gold held privately falls under private disposal transactions. Hold it for more than one year and the entire gain is income-tax free, regardless of size. Sell within the year and a €1,000 exemption limit per calendar year applies (raised from €600 for assessment periods from 2024). Critically, this is a threshold, not an allowance: at €1,000.01 of gain the whole amount is taxable at your personal rate, not just the excess.
Keep evidence. Retain purchase receipts showing date, weight and price. You may have to prove the holding period; without documentation the tax office will not assume in your favour. Where you hold several units of the same product, first-in-first-out applies.
No flat-rate capital gains tax. Physical gold is not a capital investment product under § 20 EStG, so the 25 % Abgeltungsteuer does not apply — which distinguishes bars and coins from gold ETFs and certificates, whose treatment depends on their structure.
Testing 999 gold for authenticity
Density test. The most informative method without special equipment. Fine gold is 19.32 g/cm³, a figure almost no substitute material matches. Weigh the piece dry, then suspended in water; the difference gives you the volume. Deviations above 2 % are a serious warning sign. The known edge case: tungsten at 19.25 g/cm³ is nearly identical and is used in faked large bars.
Ultrasound and conductivity. Developed precisely for that tungsten case. Devices such as Sigma Metalytics measure electrical conductivity below the surface and detect a foreign core that density and X-ray miss. Every larger German dealer runs one — ask about it when buying.
X-ray fluorescence (XRF). Determines elemental composition non-destructively in seconds, but reads only the top few micrometres. On its own it cannot defeat a thick gold plating over a base core.
Magnet and visual check. Gold is not magnetic. A strong neodymium magnet exposes crude fakes instantly — but does not rule them out, since tungsten and copper are also non-magnetic. Also check strike sharpness, edge quality and the bar serial number against the manufacturer's database.
Common mistakes with 999 gold
- ⚠Buying units that are too small. The 1-gram bar feels accessible but carries the highest relative premium. Accumulating ten 1-gram bars instead of one 10-gram bar gives away roughly 6–8 % before the price moves at all.
- ⚠Cutting open the blister. The sealed pack is part of the proof of value. An opened blister routinely costs one to two percentage points at resale because the buyer has to re-assay.
- ⚠Just missing the one-year mark. Selling on day 360 instead of day 366 can trigger over €3,000 in tax on an €8,000 gain at a 42 % marginal rate — for six days of impatience. Record your purchase date.
- ⚠Expecting fine gold to work as jewellery. A 999 ring worn daily will be visibly deformed within months. For wearable jewellery, 750 or 585 are the technically correct choice.
