Bank of England Vault Floor Layout (updated)

The Bank of England Virtual Tour is pretty neat - specifically the 360 degree rotatable picture of the main gold vault. 'Crazy to do from a security perspective', so interesting to consider the need for transparency was greater than the need for secrecy. The website/app is great fun for anyone liking shiny things.

I wanted to explore a few additional details, create a historical record for posterity and completely debunk the 1,300 tonnes of leased gold idea before it gains too much traction in the metals space. Primarily though, the main purpose of this article is to highlight extra detail - insofar as it helps reduce the social distance between us and that big stash of gold.

Bob Pisani Revisited (a fresh look)

I recently completed a batch of data importing for the database project (link), which cleared a backlog of files waiting to be processed. The completion is a huge milestone because it finally provides the ability to search (almost instantly) for gold bars across 18 different funds, in records covering the last 18 months. So while Screwtape Files was the FIRST blog to identify Bob Pisani's mystery bar ZJ6752, we now return to the study armed with more information.

The goal remains the same ... "use the database to identify gold bars that we see in the media, for additional narrative". This gives us a larger picture for virtually no extra effort, because the hard work of building the index is already done.

Bob Pisani and me,
from the filmed-but-
never-aired documentary:
"Prosimians in the Attic".

First, a quick history for those who haven't encountered the ZJ6752 story - CNBC's Bob Pisani presented a small series on gold in 2011. We're interested in serial numbers for bars that appear on camera. I studied the clips to find more serial numbers than just ZJ6752. These are the video references (in order most interesting to least), with the ones I've taken images from, in bold. Note that the only high-resolution footage I could find were the advertisements on youtube.

1. "Gold Rush: The Mother Lode" (4.55) cnbc link
2. "The King of Refineries" (4.28) cnbc link
3. "Gold Mine" (1.56) cnbc link
4. "Gold Rush: The Bullion Trail" (4.11) cnbc link
5. High Definition Advert for the Series # 1 (0.31) youtube link
6. High Definition Advert for the Series # 2 (0.38) youtube link