The weekend is here (finally) time to leave the political stuff on the curb and cleanse the mind of all the fecal matter….thanx to the media……
Remember the old days when you tried to use a pay phone and someone had busted it up to get the change? Or how about the snack or cigarette machines that had been burglarized….times change…..now we get to see videos of people trying to make off with an ATM machine….using trucks, chains, back hoes, etc…..everybody looking for that next score…….what possibly be next? Maybe those new DVD machines in every corner? What possibly lure criminals out to try a new heist?
Well, I found it in an article in the UK’s Guardian………
Tucked away in an unassuming corner of the Westfield shopping centre in west London are a trio of vending machines. One dispenses cash, another soft drinks and water, but the final – and latest – one offers a much more expensive commodity: 24-carat gold. It’s not exactly an impulse buy, is it?
The Gold to go machine is manufactured and operated by German company, Ex Oriente Lux (light from the east). They’ve already taken their gold-vending ATMs across the world, with machines in Europe, North America, and the Emirates. The idea is simple: take the world’s reliance on the idea of gold as a solid investment and then give them quick and easy access to it. It’s so simple, in fact, you wonder why no one else has done it before. The machine updates its prices every 10 minutes, based on current gold spot prices.
On offer are bars of different weights: 1g, 2.5g (with the distinctive London skyline engraved on its back) 5g, and a quarter of an ounce coin. For the flashier punter, there’s a 250g bar, which costs in the region of £10,000. Hussein selects a 2.5g bar about half the length of his forefinger and pays £100 in cash. A couple of seconds later, a matt black gift box emerges from the machine. Inside it, the thin bar is sealed in plastic with an anti-counterfeit hologram sticker.
I think this is a dumb idea……at $1400+ an ounce…..I cannot wait to see the imagination that will be used to rip off one of these machines……or the poor bastard that gets his gold out of the machine……