Just a few hundred meters along a busy downtown Paris road, Godot & Fils [Godot & Son], Or en Cash [Cash for Gold] and Comptoir National de l'Or [National Gold Counter] are just a few of the many stores with names that combine gold and pomp – gold, national, royal etc. The proliferation of gold-buying and -selling outlets is no longer discreet in French cities and affluent towns.
The three main French specialist networks alone (Or en Cash, Godot & Fils and Comptoir National de l'Or) have some 300 outlets, many of them franchises. Launches are still taking place all over France, sharpening competition over the amount of commission charged. On Rue Vivienne in Paris, at the headquarters of Godot & Fils, whose interior woodwork highlights its reassuring age (opened in 1933), customers were queuing up on this Tuesday at the beginning of September. "We're ultra-competitive, with commission hovering around 1.5% thanks to our volume of transactions," said branch manager Antoine Tahar. "Elsewhere, they can rise to 2.5% or 3.5%."
Placing a plastic bag on his desk, he said: "Look! This is what we've been buying for the last hour. At least 1 kilo of gold jewelry. Quantities have been abnormally high since Covid-19 in 2020, but they've been accelerating recently. People are taking advantage of the price peak to sell. Gold is leaving home." It's coming in, too. The boom in gold dealer activity is just as much due to sales of gold coins, bars and ingots. Arnaud Fhal, a partner at Godot & Fils, claims to sell more yellow metal to private customers than he buys back: "For 30 years, people have been making money by investing in gold. Our customers love us! In 1994, it was worth €8,000 a kilo. Now it's €73,000. We'll probably top €100,000."
The ounce of gold reached a new all-time high of $2,704.89 on Friday, October 18, following the announcement of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza. It has gained around 30% since the beginning of the year.
And Fhal listed the countless virtues of this safe-haven asset in times of uncertainty, crisis and armed conflict: "Gold is easily exchanged for cash, unlike real estate. We're not talking about crypto-currencies. We're talking about concrete things. We never talk about hacking. Customers want security; they're afraid. Fear of inflation, of debt, of banks collapsing. When they take bullion in their hand and feel its density, they're impressed." A solid, reassuring product, now accessible to a wider range of budgets, as 5-gram, 2.5-gram and even 1-gram ingots are available (at around €75).
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