What is bullion gold
96.5% gold without the shaping — the closest you can buy to the underlying metal price
Definition
Bullion gold — ทองคำแท่ง in Thai — is gold cast into standard bars or sheets rather than worked into ornaments. Bullion is produced by foundries certified to the Thai gold industry standard. The Thai standard uses 96.5% purity for bullion, identical to jewelry, which lets buyers compare bullion and ornament prices directly. Some larger dealers also stock 99.99% bullion for customers who specifically want the international standard, but it's far less common in retail — most Thai shops carry only 96.5%.
Purity
Bullion at 96.5% has the same purity as Thai jewelry — same gold content, same price per unit of pure gold. The difference is that bullion isn't shaped, so there's no workmanship fee. Bullion at 99.99% (24-karat) is the international standard, popular in foreign markets and for long-term vault storage. Its per-gram price is higher proportional to the purity difference. For typical retail Thai buyers, the 96.5% bullion is more convenient because it can be sold back at any shop using the published reference rate — universally recognized.
Sizes and weights
Bullion in Thailand is sold by baht weight, identical to jewelry. The standard unit is 1 baht, weighing 15.244 grams. Popular smaller sizes are ½ baht and ¼ baht (1 saleung). Larger sizes — 2 baht, 5 baht, 10 baht — are available at major dealers for serious buyers. Bullion is typically a flat sheet or rectangular bar stamped with the foundry mark, serial number, and weight to verify authenticity. Keep the original certificate, receipt, or sealed packaging — they make resale easier because the shop doesn't need to test the bar before buying it back at the standard rate.
Buying and selling prices
A 1-baht bullion bar sells at the published bullion sell reference rate — around ฿62,200 in May 2025 — and buys back at the bullion buy rate of about ฿62,100. The bid-ask spread is roughly ฿100 per baht, very narrow. In contrast, jewelry includes a ฿800 workmanship fee at purchase that's lost on resale, so jewelry is effectively ฿900–฿1,000 per baht further from the underlying gold price than bullion is, from the moment of purchase onward. Bullion holders therefore start with lower entry cost and reach break-even much faster.
Storage
Bullion isn't designed for wearing, so storage matters. Options include: a home safe or locked box; a bank safe deposit box (typically ฿500–฿2,000 per year depending on size); or vault storage at the dealer itself — Hua Seng Heng and some larger shops will custody bullion you bought from them for an annual fee. Insurance is worth considering once your total holding exceeds about 10 baht in weight — standard home insurance doesn't usually cover loss or theft of precious metals.
Bullion vs jewelry
Bullion is the cheapest gold accumulation vehicle in Thailand — no workmanship fee, narrow buy-sell spread, prices that track the published reference directly. Where bullion can't compete with jewelry is in the wearing or gifting use case. The clearest framing for buyers is to separate the goals: jewelry for what you'll actually use, bullion (or gold savings) for what you want to accumulate as savings or as a hedge against inflation. Mixing the two — buying jewelry hoping it doubles as savings — is the most common and costly mistake.