$400,000 in Gold Krugerrand Coins Help Buy Home

Imagine selling your home and the buyer comes to the closing toting a 30 pound briefcase containing $400,000 in South African gold Krugerrand coins. That’s exactly what happened in Sarasota, Florida.

In the residential purchase contract, the buyer and seller — both Americans — agreed to the gold transaction for a $1 million home.

In a HeraldTribune.com article entitled Guess this buyer saw a golden opportunity, writer Tom Boyles quoted Realtor Kim Ogilvie as saying,

“This was a first,” Ogilvie acknowledged, adding in Realtor fashion: “It really shows you the depth to which buyers will go to use their resources to acquire properties they think are well-priced.”

Similar to the American Eagle gold coins, South African Krugerrand coins may be purchased in gold weights of one ounce, one-half ounce, one-quarter ounce and one-tenth ounce.

At of 11:27 am (ET), New York spot gold per ounce is $926.30. That would take 432 Krugerrands to make the $400,000 today. Two weeks ago it would have taken about 460 of the coins. Given gold’s recent volatility, the purchase contract must have been almost as unique as the coins for payment.

As a side note, the HeraldTribune article indicated about 444 coins were needed during the time of the home closing, and that the weight of those coins were about 37 pounds.

Krugerrands are weighed in troy ounces, not the everyday weight system of the avoirdupois pound used when stepping on a scale. 444 Krugerrands actually weigh 37 troy pounds, but their "lifting weight" is about 30.4 pounds (lbs).