Costco Gold Bars

Submission 2,057

About

Costco Gold Bars refers to one-ounce 24-karat gold bars sold by the American retail company Costco Wholesale. The one-ounce bars cost roughly $2,400 each and in April 2024, an article by CNBC went viral in which it was reported that Costco earned between $100 million to $200 million a month for its gold sales. The reporting inspired mass discourse on social media sites like Twitter / X and Reddit in early 2024. Costco began selling gold and silver bullion in late 2020. Memes and jokes about buying gold at Costco also surfaced, similar to memes about the Costo Hot Dog.

History

Costco began selling gold bullion in October 2020, originally making headlines in the U.K. when reported on by the Daily Mail.^[1] At the time, Costco's one-ounce bars were selling for $1,900 each.

In January 2023, American outlets like American Bullion^[2] reported on online sales of Costco's gold bars, stating that the company was frequently selling out of them. On September 27th, 2023, CNBC^[3] published an article called "Costco is selling gold bars and they are selling out within a few hours."

By April 2024, the price of a one-ounce gold bar on the Costco website^[4] was roughly $2,400. On the website, the product is called "1 oz Gold Bar PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna Veriscan" (shown below).

Online Presence

Posts about Costco's gold bars date back to October 2020, evident in a tweet shared by X^[5] user @CollinKettell on October 4th, 2020, who linked to Daily Mail's article, writing, "Costco begins selling gold bars. Never thought I'd see the day! A sign of the times as faith in paper currency continues to wane…" The post received over 330 likes in four years (shown below).

In 2023, posts about Costco selling gold bars surfaced on the /r/Costco subreddit, such as a post shared by Redditor^[6] Tasty_Money4581 on July 31st, 2023, gaining over 360 upvotes in nine months (shown below).

TikTokers started to post content about Costco gold bars in 2023. For instance, on July 29th, 2023, TikToker^[7] @freshdailyca posted a video discussing the topic, gaining over 257,800 plays and 3,000 likes in nine months (shown below, left).

On December 18th, 2023, TikToker^[8] @mbdailyshow posted a similar video on the topic, receiving roughly 1.4 million plays and 25,400 likes in four months (shown below, right).

On December 16th, 2023, Redditor^[9] NOAEL_MABEL posted about Costco gold bars to /r/OutOfTheLoop, receiving over 3,500 upvotes in four months.

Following the CNBC article in early April 2024 that sparked renewed interest in Costco's gold bars, users on social media also reacted to the story via memes. For example, on April 9th, 2024, X^[10] / Twitter user @AdamSinger posted a We Are Not the Same meme, receiving nearly 200 likes in roughly 24 hours (seen below).