A VENDING MACHINE OF GOLD AT THE PALACE HOTEL IN MADRID

A few days ago I went to the Palace Hotel in Madrid (one of the best, a five star luxury hotel) with some friends to see an exhibition held in the Hotel Bar titled “Divas” of photographs of famous celebrities taken by a well-known Spanish photographer called César Lucas and when we were leaving the lounge Bar we saw something that caught our attention, a vending machine all of it golden coloured, we approached it for a better look and saw that it was really a very special machine......

If you insert money into this machine, it doesn’t give you a bottle of water or a pack of snacks or a condom or a subway ticket, no, what this machine gives you is small gold ingots or coins. Yes, it gives you gold! For every 40 euros you insert (it's the least you can get, up to 1000 euros) the machine gives you back one gram of gold, which comes out in a small package with a receipt. And every 10 minutes, the prices are updated as the market price rises.

According to the German company that has made this vending machine of gold (Ex Oriente Lux) its aim is to provide a tangible asset that will maintain its value in the future, regardless of the financial system.

Before being installed this machine in Madrid, a first machine was installed in Abu Dhabi (Dubai) and a second one was installed at the airport of Bergamo (Italy). The developper company plans to install 500 machines across Europe in the near future.

So far the idea has been very successful and this machine has come at a time when gold is reaching record of contribution (an ounce is about 1000 euros), many tourists come to see the machine to take souvenir photos, or to purchase an original gift for a loved one and in fact, coins of 1 ounce of gold were sold out in the early days, but what we need to know now if it will become just a fad or something lasting. Who knows? Let's see!