Gold and Silver
People are always asking if you can buy and sell gold or silver in Ecuador.
The answer is yes, you can.
For buying in large quantities, you can go to the gold and silver mines that are here in the country. As of yet, we have not done that, but we do have the connections to get it done. But again this would be for large quantities ($50,000 to $100,000 worth).
For smaller quantities, you can get them from the little jewelry shops around town. You do not get it in coin form here like you do in the US. It is like what you get from the ground, in small pebbles. Then you will probably want to make sure it is real silver or gold and the people do that here all the time. They have kits that you can put acid on the silver or gold to see if it's pure. I have not tried this yet as I have not needed to.
Other options would be using a company called Kitco that is located in Canada or any other on-line company that sells gold and silver. You can buy precious metals and have it kept in an account called a Pool Account. This means that when you purchase gold or silver, they keep it there for you in a vault and it is real gold and silver, not a certificate. When you're ready to sell your gold or silver, you can have your monies wired to a bank account. Kitco has 4 different currencies that they use whereas some other holders use 6 or 8 different currencies.
You can have accounts set up in different locations, one in the US and one in Ecuador or both. I have two. You can have a Kitco account that does both. You wire the money to that account which will take a couple of days, in the US it takes 24 hours. From Canada to Ecuador may take up to a few day. I am not sure as I have not done that one yet but I do have silver in my Kitco Ecuador account.
You can also bring gold on the plane with you when you come. I don't believe there is a limit but it's a good idea to call the airline ahead of time. Technically gold or silver is not classified as money as the US declared it many years ago. It's classified as coin collecting so there should not be a limit to how much you bring like there is a limit on how much cash you can bring.
So as long as you have a receipt that you can prove that it is yours, you shouldn't have any trouble.
We have had several people bring over 9 or 10 oz. of gold. We have kept the amount small but I don't know why you couldn't bring more like 50 oz. if you wanted. If you are going to do that, it may be a good idea to bring the person that drives you to your airport come in with you, incase there is a problem. If there is one, then you can give your gold or silver to your friend to get it back home for you, but I would make sure it is someone that you trust very well. That friend can then send it to Kitco for you and once it's in your account at Kitco, then you can have it transferred into your bank account.
So, that is another way to get it over here.
From my Kitco account, I have had monies wired to my US account and from there, I bought a tractor and had it shipped here to Ecuador. So, this was done by transferring monies from one account to the other account. So I just transferred my silver value into tractor value instead of putting it into paper currency, which in my option, paper currency is worthless.
What I would do if I had a lot of the paper currency is to trade it in or invest it in valuable things (such as gold, silver, real estate, etc.) because the world is in such disarray right now that no one knows what is going to happen to the paper money we are using.
As for selling, I have not done this either but I know of some guys who will buy up to $15,000 at a time. If you have your plan worked out well, I cannot see you selling that much at one time as you should be able to do small increments at a time when you need it. Gold or silver is usually just for savings, generally for me and I use it for the future purposes (like when the paper dollar crashes). I do have a small amount of paper currencies on hand but I don't keep a lot of it in the bank as I don't trust the banking system at all.
There will be more information for you when you get here but that is the general take on it. Please let me know if you have any questions.
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