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> I also find it a bit strange that they seemed to go through a lot of effort in melting these bars to make sure no one can inspect the originals.

You're inferring a motive. The stated reason is that those bars didn't conform to the London Good Delivery specification.

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You're correct, I wasn't precise there. Good call! In fact, now that I think about it, there's also another potential and innocent explanation for this (pure speculation, though): Maybe the insurance companies for the transport only accepted to insure LGD bars, as otherwise they would have to value each and every individual bar prior to shipment to determine the insurance value.

(Opens up new questions for speculation, though: If that was the case, why didn't the Bundesbank disclose that as the reason for melting them?)

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