How Much Do Gold Bars Weigh?

Buying a gold bar is exciting, but there’s a practical issue to consider. Gold is heavy, and you need to know how much the bar you just ordered will weigh.

The most common size for gold bars is 1 troy ounce. A troy ounce weighs just under 0.07 pounds, which doesn’t sound like much, but the small size of the bar is likely going to deceive you.

If you’re looking to make weightlifting a part of your investing, however, you could always start squatting the largest gold bar in the world. The Mitsubishi Gold Bar in Izu, Japan weighs 250 kilograms, or roughly 551 pounds. Of course, you’ll probably be expected to pay the bar’s $17.1 million price tag before you can start adding it to your workout routine.

However, you’re probably not thinking about a bar that size. So, this page is your guide to the most common gold bar sizes and how much they weigh.

Gold Bar Conversion Chart

Here is a handy table with the most common bar sizes and their conversions.

Common Weights and Sizes of Gold Bars

Although those conversions are all valid and you may conceivably find options for them, the reality is that most investors tend to confine their investing to one of four gold bar sizes. So, let’s talk about these weights and who might want them.

For our purposes, we are going to be discussing offerings from Valcambi, as Valcambi offers options for all four of the most common sizes. However, you can buy terrific gold bars from other mints like PAMP Suisse and Perth Mint, too.

1 oz

The first popular gold bar size is likely the most popular of them all. A 1 oz gold bar appeals to almost every type of investor due to its relative affordability and ease of transport. Any gold investor can lock up tremendous value in a bar that could fit into one’s pocket – though we wouldn’t recommend you store it this way.

10 oz

The 10 oz gold bar is where gold investing becomes a bit more serious. Due to the spot price of gold, these bars sell for more than $20,000 these days, and it’s unlikely that they’ll be coming below that mark anytime soon. Therefore, the 10 oz bar is a purchase made by investors looking to carve out a major portion of their net worth in gold.

1 gram

1 gram gold bars are popular for investors on a budget. They are affordable for almost anyone and offer one of the easiest ways to dabble in gold. 1 gram bars are also excellent selections for those looking for a meaningful and lasting present or gift.

1 kilo

A 1 kilo gold bar is a lot of gold. This denomination, though quite popular, is reserved for investors looking to store a major portion of their net worth in precious metals. There’s no denying that the kilos accomplish that task, but bear in mind that you are concentrating the value of a small house into a 2.2-pound object – there is an inherent security concern that goes with these.

Why Troy Ounces?

Precious metals are traded in troy ounces as a holdover from the Middle Ages. Merchants in the French trading hub of Troyes defined an ounce as equivalent in weight to 480 grains of barley and a pound as 12 ounces. We mostly use the imperial ounce for other measurements, however, and its 16 ounces per pound.

What Is The Difference Between a Bar, Ingot and Biscuit

You may see or hear discussion about gold bars, gold ingots, and gold biscuits, and wonder what these bits of lingo mean. Well, they all refer to blocks of gold, but each one is understood to be a bit different.

A gold bar, the topic of this page, is a cast block of gold that is usually between 1 gram and 1 kilogram in weight. They are rectangular solids and sometimes have rounded edges.

An ingot is also a bar of gold, but a much larger one. Generally, ingots are hundreds of ounces of gold in a single block – the most common size is the 400 oz. variety mentioned in the table above. Needless to say, these heavy objects are also quite valuable – more than $1 million at current gold prices.

Finally, a gold biscuit is a gold bar with a slightly different shape and profile. It is much more similar to a wafer of gold, although it can certainly weigh as much as a standard bar. However, biscuits are cut more thinly and in a roughly square shape, rather than a rectangular one.

Conclusion

So, the question on your mind is likely what size is best to purchase. The truth is that it depends on your budget, investment goals and the spot price of gold. We walked through the most commonly purchased bars and what kinds of investors buy them, so you likely have an idea where you fall along those definitions (or between them).

At the end of the day, there’s no wrong answer so long as you make a responsible decision for your financial situation. The only caveat is that, like most products, there is savings in bulk purchasing. The larger the bar you buy, the better deal you’ll get on a per-oz basis.

The bottom line is that gold bars offer a rather portable way to safeguard some of your net worth in a tangible and timeless asset. So, reach out to us at JM Bullion to get started, no matter if you’re buying a gram, a kilo, or something in the middle.