GOLD RUSH IN LONDON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

GOLD RUSH IN LONDON.

TRINKET-BOX FORTUNES. HEIRLOOMS IN MELTING POT. WHERE , OLD BECOMES NEW. A gold rush has started in London. Thousands of pounds' worth of trinkets — old brooches, bangles, rings, cigarette cases, filigree pendants, and necklets—are being melted down in the stifling hot furnace rooms, of Hatton Garden. Strange people—nervous-looking little old ladies in quaint clothes, who have never known Ilatton Garden before except by name —are to be seen almost every minute of th e clay looking for the place where old gold is made into new at handsome exchange rates. A .Daily Express writer says:—" 1 drifted along Hatton Garden on the ebb of the gold tide recently behind a fragile woman with an attache case that seemed too heavy for her, much too heavy. I saw that attache case of family heirlooms a few minutes later, when 1 had my first peep behind the scenes in the forbidden land where old gold is turned into new—the secret, well-guarded bullion-rooms of a well-known firm. There my bewitched eyes saw at a single glance more gold snrl silver than they had ever seen in a lifetime's scanning of jewellers' windows. " Even the jewellers and the bookhinders are sharing in the gold rush. The sweepings of their floors are coming in on the noonday tide in a way that has made Hatton Garden open its experienced eyes wide in wonderment. " All day and all night long the furnaces of this famous old firm of assayers and refiners are at white heat, refining the gold and silver that comes to Ilatton Garden in suitcases, attache cases, brownpaper parcels, and registered mailbags. I walked over to one of those furnaces, and at a word from the man who piloted me round this wonderland of gold and silver the great iron door opened clowly, heavily. " I was in the glare of a dazzling light. . ./. The heat was overpowering. I stepped back quickly . . . and looked fit a shining, glistening pool—gold ! They told me the old gold was being turned into new at 119s an ounce—almost the highest price ever paid for refined gold in Britain."

A cablegram published in last Wednesday's Herald stated that the rush to sell gold was increasing in Britain, as a result of the rise in the price. Dealers are now offering 27s 66 fot n sovereign.