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Gold Flows East As Three Pieces Of Bacon Sell For €105 Million

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Today’s AM fix was USD 1,281.75, EUR 953.99 and GBP 797.65 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,266.00, EUR 951.25 and GBP 798.75 per ounce.

Gold rose $14.40 or 1.13% yesterday, closing at $1,294.07/oz. Silver hit a high $20.90 and closed the day with a gain of $0.25 closing at $20.81.

Click here for this month’s Insight ‘Talking Real Money: World Monetary Reform’

Yesterday, the World Gold Council released its Gold Demand Trends 2013 Report which demonstrates quite clearly that the Chinese continue to accumulate gold; gold continues to flow east to both government and consumer channels. The report also showed that central banks continue to accumulate and there is positive news that jewellery trade is up.

Key findings:

Continued consumer growth in China. 
Total consumer demand was 210t in Q3 2013, a rise of 18% compared to the same period last year.

Central banks continue to be strong buyers of gold, albeit at a slower rate.
Q3 2013 was the 11th consecutive quarter of net purchases of gold.

Jewellery consumption in South East Asia, outside China, was also strong.
Hong Kong was up 28%, Vietnam up 14%, Thailand up 57% and Indonesia up 19% on the same quarter last year albeit off low bases.

Government regulations in India are dampening demand figures.
India recorded a 32% decline in consumer demand compared to the same quarter last year. However year to date, demand remains robust, up 19% compared to the first three quarters of 2012, following the surge in demand sparked by two price falls earlier in 2013.

Francis Bacon’s 'Three Studies of Lucian Freud'

In another vote of confidence in the world of art, a triptych by Francis Bacon, titled 'Three Studies of Lucian Freud,' sold for €105 million ($142 million), a world record price for a painting.

However, Felix Salmon at Reuters believes that there is a speculative play in place and there is a number of people selling big-ticket contemporary art works at auction who have only owned these pieces for a short time and this is a key indicator that there is flipping in the market.

Salmon opines that there is signs of a speculative bubble, one that has been going on for years, even through the darkest hours of the financial crisis but that this latest burst of record selling prices could be the tipping point.

The price was pushed up by €44 million ($60 million) more than the auction house had estimated it would sell for. Believe it or not, but the price was decided after just ten minutes of bidding. This price smashes the previous record set when 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch sold for €89 million ($120 million.)

The auction also set a record for the highest amount ever made at one auction with €687 million (€511 million) worth of paintings were sold and included artists such as Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and Mark Rothko.

Lucian Freud, who died in 2011, was also the subject of a second full-length Bacon triptych, painted in 1966. That work, however, is missing.

Whilst owning a Francis Bacon painting is out of the reach for most people, you can visit his studio where all these ‘expensive’ paintings were created. In keeping with the aura that surrounds Bacon’s life, his studio and its entire contents were moved from London to Dublin in 1998, and is on display in the Hugh Lane Galleryin Parnell Square, Dublin.

The Hugh Lane Gallery has its own amazing story in that Sir Hugh Percy Lane, its founder, died on board the RMS Lusitania in 1915 when she was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat.

No trip to Dublin is complete unless you visit this stunning exhibition; Bacon’s studio is a revelation and you can marvel at how three pieces of Bacon were sold for an incredible €105 million or 3.78 tons of gold at today's price of €953/oz.

Click here for this month’s Insight ‘Talking Real Money: World Monetary Reform’

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Sat, 11/16/2013 - 00:25 | 4160007 Hongcha
Hongcha's picture

Bacon was a great artist, largely self-taught; but very morbid.  He got his kicks getting beaten up & fucked in the ass by the dockside boys at the Thames.  L. Freud was brutally, relentlessly honest, his works have a beauty because of they are free of bullshit.

Think of all the beautiful things you could buy with that money.

I just don't get it.

God, I am getting my a$$ handed to me with my PM positions.  And I have no ideea how long I will be staring down the empty track into the dark.

Everyone hates what I like.  I am dead in the fucking water boys.

Maybe I am starting to understand Bacon in a new way ;)

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 20:54 | 4159664 Burticus
Burticus's picture

Somebody has way "more dollars than sense" if he paid the equivalent of 145 million FeRNs for those simplistic paintings!

If they were offered as a choice on the "Let's Make a Deal" TV game show, you would hear the audience shouting frantically, "Take the gold! Take the **ckin' 3.78 tons of gold, dumb@$$!"

In fact, if I didn't know they were "Francis Bacon originals" (gasp), I wouldn't pay 5 FeRNs for 'em at a yard sale, much less hang them on my living room wall.  But, I guess all my taste is in my mouth.

At least you don't have to figure out if they're hanging upside down, like a lot of modern works of "art."

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 23:30 | 4159943 jeff montanye
jeff montanye's picture

bet lucian freud and the scream outperform stocks, treasury bills and bonds over the next ten years, measured in gold.

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 22:13 | 4159827 Jam Akin
Jam Akin's picture

Absolutely - what this Bacon art deal screams is how undervalued gold actually is at the moment.

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 20:36 | 4159642 Zero Point
Zero Point's picture

Maybe the paintings contain instructions on how to open the Oak Island money pit.

Oh... wrong Francis Bacon lol.

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 19:37 | 4159531 Parrotile
Parrotile's picture

Once the US Dollar collapses, how long before 3 rashers of bacon cost $ 50 million each.

Massively overvalued "art" vs. massively undervalued essential services and infrastructure. Wonder how this is going to "work out"??

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 17:12 | 4159116 No Euros please...
No Euros please we're British's picture

I wonder how many members of the Fed eat bacon?  

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 23:26 | 4159937 jeff montanye
jeff montanye's picture

depends how literally they take deuteronomy and leviticus. 

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 17:05 | 4159080 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture

Gold flows East, Gold flows East, yada yada yada, London Trader says 'absolute panic on trading floor', Andrew McGuire says unbelievable amount of gold is being melted down into 1 kilo bars and shipped to Asia.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard this for years.  Apparently we in the west have quite a bit to spare then, given how long this has been going on.

 

Gold Core, McGuire, King World News, Stephen Leeb, Keith Barron, John Embry, Eric Sprott, etc... give it a fucking rest.  Maybe just shut the fuck up for now, and come back and say 'I told you so' when the big reset occurs, ok?

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 18:53 | 4159427 Son of Captain Nemo
Son of Captain Nemo's picture

That list wouldn't be complete without the harbinger of gold prices to come "Jim Willie"...

I echo everything you just said in spades with the caveat that it's never been about the quantity of metal out there, but rather too many people who own it that still feel secure in the notion that what they have on paper being the same as 'physical' in hand.  If it's good enough for the German CB to wade it out for 7 more years -why should the small investor worry?

However once the floodgate of customers panic and hit the red button for good delivery the atmosphere will change. 

That and guys like Corzine, Dimon and Chilton being met in their office with handcuffs and frog marched to Leavenworth!

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 19:43 | 4159547 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture

Agree, just tired of hearing the same old stories, over and over, always with the implication that 'LBMA default is going to happen any day now!!!!!!'

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 16:12 | 4158893 Sonic the porcupine
Sonic the porcupine's picture

Would this still have the record if the record was priced in gold?

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 15:46 | 4158791 Fuh Querada
Fuh Querada's picture

James Rickards most likely bought the Bacon.
Tulip bulbs, anyone?

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 17:10 | 4159111 SAT 800
SAT 800's picture

At least you can eat Tulip Bulbs. Really, look it up. they're related to onions, or something. I'm not much of a biologist.

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 19:33 | 4159519 Parrotile
Parrotile's picture

DON'T Try that at home. Tulip bulbs contain high concentrations of the toxic lactones Tulipalin A and B. They will induce spectacular vomiting with significant abdominal pain, convulsions, and in a few cases of significant consumption, death.

http://www.gardenguides.com/128031-tulip-bulb-toxicity.html

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 23:20 | 4159930 jeff montanye
jeff montanye's picture

for more on tulips (potatoes, apples and marijuana) check out the fantastic, but true, "botany of desire":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Botany_of_Desire

find out why and how those witches really rode those broomsticks.

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 14:28 | 4158441 SILVERGEDDON
SILVERGEDDON's picture

Hmmm - Bacon, or gold ? Tough choice - NOT !!!

Buy the fucking dips, bitchez.

Silver is good, too. 

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 15:26 | 4158702 SAT 800
SAT 800's picture

Bacon Dip? ymm. 3.78 Tonnes of Gold for that crappy painting; I don't think so. There's a fool somewhere at this poker table.

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 18:32 | 4159368 Diogenes
Diogenes's picture

"Bacon Dip? ymm. 3.78 Tonnes of Gold for that crappy painting; I don't think so. There's a fool somewhere at this poker table."

along with a bunch of dogs.

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 15:50 | 4158795 Fuh Querada
Fuh Querada's picture

a fool who has a few billion USD and opines that the latter is going to zero.
edit : or the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund?

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 14:26 | 4158427 RaceToTheBottom
RaceToTheBottom's picture

Bacon Bubble? or

Money laundering?

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 15:27 | 4158710 SAT 800
SAT 800's picture

Both? Good suggestion. Not necessarily either-or. eh?

Fri, 11/15/2013 - 14:31 | 4158447 0b1knob
0b1knob's picture

"Ummmm bacon....."    Homer Simpson

Sat, 11/16/2013 - 00:28 | 4160023 SafelyGraze
SafelyGraze's picture

"people selling big-ticket contemporary art works at auction who have only owned these pieces for a short time and this is a key indicator that there is flipping in the market."

not flipping

dumping

they are dumping big-ticket contempo art like crazy

it is an art-dump frenzy

they borrowed money from linda green to pay for the pieces on the walls, but now the sub-prime art-equity-line-of-credit is resetting

 

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