together, organised a bank guaranteed cheque
and bought six Kruger Rands from the SA Gold
Coin Exchange in Johannesburg. We made a
few Rands and I decided to carry on while my
friend duly lost interest."
and in the 90s he started the gold club,
then 15 years after his first visit to the Gold
Coin Exchange he bought it, after which he
acquired the Gold Investment Corporation a
credit based coin operation in 1999. But in
the late 90s things got tough, and contrary to
conventional wisdom where one buries ones
head in the sand while times are rough Alan
and his team decided to open up a shop in
Sandton City and called it the Scoin shop.
shut the shop down when we decided to open
a second shop instead. Through trial and
error we slowly got the retail component right
and opened points in Durban
and Cape Town as well
as the airports. Today
we have 35 shops
in the premier
shopping malls,"
adds Alan.
preconceived
notion that coin
collecting was an
art left to old codgers
in their cigar gowns
and that it was reserved
for underhanded dodgy
alleyways, the success of
The South African Gold
Coin Exchange and its
Scoin shops will surely
squash these. Today the
team has a banking team
in Sandton where it trades
in coins around the globe, an
Internet team as well as its shops,
making it a truly multi-channel retailer.
The model the company follows is to ensure
that its brokers stay hard at work buying and
selling coins from and to individuals looking
for an investment, whereas the shops are
merely involved in the selling of coins.
buying, so many people see the gold prices
but have no idea on how to crack the market,
by giving them access to coins we give them
a foot in the door. In short we have made it
accessible to everyone as we have brought
coins to Canal Walk and medallions to
Menlyn," he says.
hinged around dealing in Kruger Rands, which
remains the biggest gold tender in South Africa,
and which people can buy and sell through the
Exchange's networks. According to Alan with the
price of gold being where it is and with the rand
being so volatile, Kruger Rands are the best
rand hedge in South Africa.
trades in really collectible coins outside of
Kruger Rands.
Rands themselves are incredibly collectible to
the people who collect them and they are our
main business. I find that people with a collector
mentality will collect anything whether it is coins,
art or even property. What sets a collector apart
from anyone else is that they have a long-term
view of their collections. Sometimes buying an
item today is not an investment, but because
they are a collector and have a long-term view
one a month for example. If
financial value,
from the SA Mint, not least of which have
included the Natura and Protea series which
on issue cost a mere R4000 and today are
trading at over R40 000. Other series it has
been involved with include the FIFA 2010
coins, Olympic coins from Atlanta, Sydney,
Greece, China and more recently London.
It has also promoted coins from the British
Royal Mint such as the Princess Di coins
and the Diamond Jubilee coins, a set which
featured coins from three commonwealth
Demby the executive chairman of The South
African Gold Coin Exchange about how he
himself moved into the industry, what it takes
to be a collector and how easy it is for one to
enter the market.
with Kruger Rands, I didn't have any knowledge
of the industry but decided to take the leap