It's a novel twist on the vending machine: in go the coins, out comes a nugget of gold. TG-Gold-Super-Markt, a company based in Reutlingen, southwestern Germany, is developing a machine to dispense pieces of gold as small as one gram in ornamental boxes for about $42. CEO Thomas Geissler said Thursday that he will deliver the first machines to sites in Germany in three months. He has talked to potential buyers in Asia, the Middle East, Britain and the US Geissler said he came up with the idea of gold dispensers just before Lehman Brothers collapsed in September and was further convinced by a heightened interest in the precious metal as a hedge against inflation as the financial crisis rippled around the globe. The largest nugget dispensed by the machine will be 10 grams, a size “only suitable for gifts,” he said. The smallest nugget that could be considered a real investment, said Geissler, is 250 grams, about the size of a travel tube of toothpaste.
