I used to be a goldsmith near Beijing. I used to do many things apart from just to sell gold, but this was obviously the core of my activity. I started my business in middle 1980s with my partner from Europe - Alexander. He was a real high-flier when it comes to various tactics of how to sell gold in the best way possible. I could say that he could easily sell a stone picked on the street for 10 dollars. I was responsible for the cash for gold trades and for scrap gold business at the backstage, so to say. Whereas Alexander was always there to serve the customer and to? squeeze as much money as possible! Unfortunately, one day the authorities started introducing procedures connected with the a ban on cash for gold trades in the country. Our business was no longer on the track and we had just several weeks to get rid of our supplies and start some other business from scratch. First of all there was a need of converting all the gold into money. There was a lot of pressure as the business was slowly starting to be considered illegal so we got rid of the gold at first occasion we came across. Enough to say that after two or three weeks we found some European buyers that offered twice as much as we got for our gold. That was like a smack in our business-oriented face. I will never again sell gold in Asia!
