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Four of the executives said at least 1,000 of the bars, of a standard size known as a kilobar for their weight, have been found.

It has also proposed a global database containing information about every kilobar produced, as a way of cross-checking the products to add an extra layer of security.

But what that special someone would really want is the £27,000 “kilobar”, smaller than a slab of chocolate but reassuringly weighty in this time of turmoil in financial markets.

But unlike standardised commodities such as gold, where each kilobar of gold is the same as the next, there is no uniformity in the VER market.