Reviewed by Isaac Kahan, Owner ·
By Isaac Kahan, Owner, Bullion Trading LLC
Gold can be hard to buy in a busy market even while it trades every second, because the price moves on a screen and the metal has to move through refiners, packers, carriers and a dealer’s own scale. When demand jumps and one supply channel becomes temporarily unavailable at the same time, the specific product, size or delivery date a customer wants can get tight, though gold is still available elsewhere. That has just happened at our desk, and this is how we are handling it.
| Key finding | Result |
|---|---|
| One 100 oz bag of gold grain | 3,110.35 g: three kilos plus 110.35 g (3.55 oz), worth about $14,550 at today's Ask |
| Median premium over the Ask | 1 g bar 31.6%; 1/10 oz Gold Eagle 23.3%; 1 oz bar 2.7%; 24K grain 1.9%; kilo bar 1.7% |
| 24 March 2020 | COMEX futures more than $70 an ounce above London as Swiss refineries shut |
| Late 2024 to February 2025 | COMEX registered and eligible gold stocks up about 800 tonnes on tariff fears |
A customer walks into a bullion dealer’s office and asks for gold casting grain. From the customer’s side the transaction should be simple: the dealer has gold, the customer pays, and the metal changes hands. What customers don’t see is how much planning it takes to keep that gold on hand, especially when demand rises all at once.
Recently, swings in the gold price brought unusually strong wholesale demand to Bullion Trading. At the same time, our regular supply channel became temporarily unavailable.
I didn’t want our customers’ normal purchasing to depend on a single supplier’s schedule. That’s why, over the years, I’ve kept relationships with more than one source of metal. We had bought from our alternative supplier before, so it wasn’t a stranger found in a panic. I changed our purchasing arrangements and ordered gold through that established relationship.
Why physical gold can be hard to buy while the price moves every second
Physical gold has to be refined, cast or granulated, packaged, shipped, received, checked and handed over, and none of that runs at the speed of a price quote. A run of heavy orders or a delay anywhere along that chain can change when one form of metal is available, even while gold trades actively around the world. That doesn’t mean there is no gold anywhere. It means the exact product, size or delivery window a customer needs may be short for a while.
The same thing happens elsewhere in the market. When one-ounce silver blanks for the American Eagle ran short in 2015, the owner of the Mint’s main supplier of them told Coin World, “There is no physical shortage of the metal,” and added, “It’s fabrication.” The silver squeeze of October 2025 was another case of metal in the wrong place, as our article on lease rates describes, and our guide to how bullion coins are made shows where the bottleneck sits for coins.
So a single supplier’s interruption is not evidence of a general gold shortage, and strong demand at one dealer’s desk is not proof of a nationwide one.
What happened to gold supply in March 2020?
The price kept trading while the metal struggled to move. On 23 March three major refineries in the Swiss canton of Ticino suspended production after local authorities ordered a halt to slow the coronavirus, and air travel restrictions threatened bullion shipments. The next day COMEX futures in New York traded more than $70 an ounce above London spot, two prices normally “within a few dollars of one another”, because London’s 400 oz bars had to be recast as 100 oz bars for COMEX, Reuters reported. CME Group answered with a new contract deliverable in 100 oz, 400 oz or kilo bars.
The refineries reopened in early April, two at under half their capacity (Bloomberg), and the US Mint’s West Point facility, which strikes gold Eagles and Buffalos, stopped production from 15 to 21 April. The gold had not run out; it was in the wrong bars, in the wrong city.
What tightened in 2025 and 2026?
In early 2025 tariff fears pulled gold to New York. COMEX futures traded as much as $40 to $50 an ounce above London, and from late 2024 to 24 February 2025 COMEX registered and eligible stocks grew by nearly 300 and more than 500 tonnes, some of it gold that had to be refined from London’s 400 oz bars into kilo bars first, the World Gold Council noted. In July a US Customs ruling put cast kilo and 100 oz bars under the new reciprocal tariff, and some traders paused shipments; on 11 August the President posted “Gold will not be Tariffed!” (Reuters; see our article on the gold tariff exemption).
In 2026 the pinch was in fabricated forms. On 22 January the Perth Mint said “there is no shortage of silver, it just isn’t in the specific forms being requested by our customers”, and paused back orders on 1 kg cast silver bars. Before Dhanteras this month it warned it could “no longer guarantee” new orders in time (notices).
Why do coins and small bars run short?
Because fabrication is counted in pieces, not ounces. Each coin or minted bar is struck, inspected and packed piece by piece, so a run of 1/10 oz coins holds a tenth of the gold of a run of 1 oz coins, while kilo bars are usually cast in molds and casting grain is poured and sold by weight. The work per piece shows in the premium. In Bullion Trading LLC's price records since October 2024, a 1 g bar cost a median 31.6% over the Ask and a kilo bar 1.7%.
Kilo bars run short too: in March 2020 a London trader told the Financial Times you could not find one “for love nor money”.
Why we keep more than one supplier
We keep more than one established source of metal because occasional interruptions are a normal part of running a physical-metals business. When one channel slows, another may be able to cover what we need. That flexibility takes time to build. It also takes a willingness to change plans quickly when demand shifts, and to accept that the second channel may ship in a different form.
Why a 100-ounce bag can mean more work
The gold we were expecting came in 100-troy-ounce bags of casting grain, while many of our customers order by the kilo. A troy ounce is exactly 31.1034768 grams under NIST Handbook 44, so a 100-ounce bag holds 3,110.35 grams of gold, about 3.11 kilograms. That is not three one-kilo packages. Three kilos come out of a bag with 110.35 grams left over, about 3.55 troy ounces, and a kilo is 32.15 troy ounces, as our grams-to-ounces guide explains.
To fill kilo orders, our staff opened each bag when it arrived, checked the grain, weighed out each kilo and repackaged it. That extra work is worth doing when it keeps us supplying customers in the amounts they use. Customers who need less than a kilo can buy our gold casting grain by the troy ounce.
What we put first in a busy market
Our first job in a busy market is dependable service to the customers who rely on us regularly, including meeting their usual needs when we can. Dependable supply and long-term relationships sometimes matter more than making the most profit on one transaction. Sometimes securing another supply means absorbing extra operating costs rather than raising prices straight away. It can also mean passing on an unusually profitable one-time sale that would come at the expense of established customers. We can’t promise uninterrupted availability or fixed prices in every market, but preparing ahead helps us respond.
What buyers should ask a gold dealer
Before a substantial physical-metal purchase, ask the dealer:
- Is the product you quoted in stock?
- When can I expect delivery or pickup?
- Is the price locked once I confirm?
- What form will the metal arrive in?
- What happens if fulfillment is delayed?
A plain answer to each is worth more than a vague promise that gold is always in stock. On our side, once we confirm an order the price is locked under our terms, provided a wire arrives within three business days or a check within five.
What else helps when gold is hard to find?
Flexibility. A random-brand bar instead of one particular coin, one 1 oz piece instead of ten 1/10 oz coins, or grain instead of a bar draws on more of the market’s stock, usually at a smaller premium. At Bullion Trading LLC, store pickup orders are paid by wire, check or Zelle, with photo ID at the counter; card and PayPal orders are shipped.
What customers don’t see behind the counter
A customer sees the gold we can hand over today. They don’t see the years of relationships and operating decisions that put it there. For me, being a dependable dealer means preparing for supply interruptions before a customer has to worry about them, and putting the customers who count on us ahead of the profit on any single sale.
Isaac Kahan, Bullion Trading LLC
Editor’s note: This article describes Bullion Trading’s general approach to supply planning and a purchasing arrangement in place as of November 2026. The shipment arrived in November 2026, after the first draft of this article. We do not identify our suppliers. The research sections, key findings, FAQ and sources are by the Bullion Trading LLC research team.
About the author
Isaac Kahan is the owner of Bullion Trading LLC, a precious-metals dealer at 20 West 47th Street in New York’s Diamond District. The company was established in 2008 and is part of the Kahan family’s business on 47th Street, which dates to 1968. Bullion Trading is licensed by the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection as a secondhand dealer (license #1304378-DCA).
Frequently asked questions
Is there a gold shortage?
Not of the metal. The squeezes of 2020 and 2025 were about bars in the wrong place or size, and a dealer can still run short of one product or delivery date for a while.
How many kilos are in a 100 oz bag of gold?
About 3.11: 100 troy oz is 3,110.35 g, so three kilos leave 110.35 g (3.55 oz).
How much is a kilo of gold worth today?
At the gold Ask of $4,099.96 an ounce on 7 November 2026, about $131,820; a random-brand kilo bar costs $134,956.22 by check or wire.Sources
- NIST Handbook 44 (2026), Appendix C
- Reuters, 24 March 2020; CME Group, 24 March 2020
- Financial Times (swissinfo.ch), 26 March 2020; Bloomberg (The National), 6 April 2020
- Coin World, 14 October 2015 and 16 April 2020
- World Gold Council, 27 February 2025
- US Customs ruling N351466, 31 July 2025; Reuters (Kitco), 10 September 2025
- The Perth Mint, 22 January 2026; notices read 7 November 2026
- Bullion Trading LLC price records and terms and conditions