Nonconformist

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An ad from a financial newspaper I saw this past fall. In contrast to the German ad for gold bars, with its emphasis on security (Wollen Sie ruhig schlafen?), of course the American one equates investing in precious metal with being a maverick.

Second-Hand

Das Gold von Caxamalca

Bought this book for a euro at Antiquariat T. Hatry on the Hauptstraße. Written by Jakob Wassermann in 1923, the novella recounts the story of Pizarro and Atahualpa, using William Hickling Prescott’s The Conquest of Peru as a major source.

Liked this (just-discovered) marginalia inside:

Das Gold von Caxamalca 1

Sleep Easy

Degussa

 Saw this ad recently in a German magazineDegussa has showrooms in Munich, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt, where the company originated. They deal in gold and silver bars and coins. Metal refinery and bullion production are now handled by Swiss firms, but ingots still bear the Degussa insignia.

[update] I’ve since learned of the role Degussa played in handling chemicals and precious metal during the Second World War, discussed in Peter Hayes’s From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich (2004).