“While pawnshops in northern Europe buy and sell a wide array of used items, the emphasis in Italy is on gold, reflecting a deeply rooted southern European tradition in which gold is the favored gift, starting from baptism. ‘Since I was a child I remember that gold was given as a gift on various occasions and people used to say: Put it aside,’ said Ivana Ciabatti. ‘We used to laugh at it, but they turned out to be right. Many families are surviving thanks to this gold.’ Official gold sales to Switzerland leaped 65 percent last year to 120 tonnes, up from 73 tonnes in 2010 and 64 tonnes in 2009.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/20/us-italy-pawnbrokers-idUSBRE87J05P20120820
Related posts:
New Irish REITs Gain Interest From Investors Including Soros, Paulson
Audit finds NSA violated ‘thousands’ of its own privacy rules
Judge Orders CoinLab to Give Bitcoin to Bitvestment
Politician and paedophile among first to ask Google to 'be forgotten'
Households lost from quantitative easing; gov'ts, big business won [2013]
Army plans switch to ‘green’ bullets containing copper
Abolish the Drug Enforcement Administration, Help The Poor Instead
The government has your baby's DNA
U. of California economist says real US debt $70 trillion, not $16 trillion
Prove you have no offshore accounts or face prosecution, says UK
Mob attacks gay couple’s engagement ceremony in Haiti
Junior mining stocks see record insider buying
Bank of Japan vows 'all means available' to smash deflation
X-Ray Scans at Airports Leave Lingering Worries
Los Angeles settles with women fired on in Dorner manhunt