[Final Authority]

Notice how the first layer on each pallet is laid with or along the slats of the pallet whereby subjecting it's mass mostly to the large timbers making up the web of the pallet. The compressive strength of this hardwood, most likely red oak, is impressive and certainly can take the loading. Pallets like these routinely handle bricks and are not as well built and often used more than once breaking down each time. Although gold is denser, and the pallet is heavier, it seems to me that this picture is plausible.

[groanup]

If this is the vault for Barclay's Bank GLD shares I wouldn't worry about it. Barclay's makes a hell of a lot more than a billion dollars a year on its iShares products.

[MosesKnows]

F.Y.I.

The gold stored in the Depository at Ft. Knox is in the form of standard mint bars of almost pure gold or coin gold bars resulting from the melting of gold coins. These bars are about the size of an ordinary building brick, but are somewhat smaller. The approximate dimensions are 7 x 3-5/8 x 1-3/4 inches. The fine gold bars contain approximately 400 troy ounces of gold. The avoirdupois weight of the bars is about 27-1/2 pounds. They are stored in the vault compartments without wrappings.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Can't say about the gold, but I sympathize about the lead. Doing radiation tests I once stacked 1500 lead bricks at 30 lbs per brick.

[Mr. Lucky]

Do some arithmetic. Unless the price of gold shot up to, say, $1,736 a Troy Ounce overnight without anyone noticing, even if you determined you were looking at gold (you're not, by the way), 48,000# isn't anywhere near worth $1,000,000,000.00

[dljordan]

The lighting is wrong. The gold on the sides isn't showing the reflections properly and the pallets directly in front look photoshopped. Something doesn't look right.

[biggerten]

Look at the pictures with the humans in it - those pallets are not the familiar size of pallet I'm used to seeing.

[Cobra64]

For an accurate assessment, just dial: 1-800-007-BOND

[Deaf Smith]

The full stack on the right shows that the bottom pallets' runners are not positioned over those below. The bending is not sufficient to the force above that should have sheared the first lower units...Camel's back.

The weight does not appear to add up to what is presented. If somehow the weight is true, no one should be allowed in that room...the domino effect is in play.

[Baraonda]

all that glitters is not gold

[bert]

I think 100 # is too much.

I visited a gold mine on Northern Luzon in my younger days. My wife and I just showed up in our bright red volkswagen and they gave us a royal tour. I guess they figured two young Americans showing up un announced in the remote location made up de facto important.

Any way, they took us to the vault and handed my wife an ingot. It was so heavy she nearly dropped it. Had it been 100 # I know she would have.

If you check Kitco, the bar they have is 400 oz or 25 pounds.

The pallets would definitely be ok with these size bars.

Check Kitco.com bullion

[river rat]

I think what may be confusing some folks - is the fact they can't clearly see there is a CENTER support on each pallet, and a sheet of material bridging the THREE pallet riser beams.

The end of the center support is covered in part by the I.D. label..

This center support would make it possible to stack the shown number of gold bars in the manner shown -- assuming wooden beams and bridging sheets of suitable material and condition.

Semper Fi

[mr_hammer]

I regularly see steel ingots being prepared for a melt furnace stacked that way and there is nothing unusual about the wood skids holding up under the forces you can see in the photo.

I have stacked over 6000 lbs of steel on a wooden skid for storage with little problems.

P.S. many heavy equipment riggers load a 20,000 pound piece of equipment on a few oak 4x4 and ship the machine over the road that way.

[PAR35]

On plain wooden pallets!

I don't accept that proposition. From the pictures, the decking of the pallets appears to be 2x4s, and the risers appear to be 4x8x. Much sturdier than an ordinary pallet.

[annalex]

Look at the thickness of the pallet beams and the fact that the pallet floor is solid -- no gaps between floor boards. I googled images for "wood pallet" and on the first 10 pages I did not see a pallet quite like that. These are special order pallets.

Also, I do not count 80 per pallet, I see 3 x 5 = 15 each corner and 5 x 2 stacked inside, to the total of 70, and that is for the most heavily loaded pallets. Most stacks of pallets has 3-high and 4-high loads per pallet.

[Steve Van Doorn]

I would say no. You have a fake pic.

lets say each bar weighs in at 30 pounds each pallet has 84 ingots (7x3x4) and then stacked 6 high this comes to around 15000 pounds exerted on the bottom pallet.

A standard heavy duty wood pallet can take around 3500 pounds (standard metal ones can take 6000 pounds.) It looks like you have 15000-pound load on the bottom pallets you are way over the limits of a standard heavy-duty pallet. Granted these seem to be even stronger pallets then what I am referring to.

It is way over their weight limits in my opinion. Don’t forget to take into account the drop weight when the forklift places the top pallet on the stack.

[Tokra]

Why not have it sent to me via UPS and I'll try to determine if it's real.

[Pete'sWife]

I want to know how you got into my basement to take the photo.

[wolfcreek]

This isn't like, guess how many jellybeans and win a prize. I think maybe who ever was staking it, got worn out towards the end.

[Thinkin' Gal]