Gold bar is a miscellaneous item in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Dead Money.
Locations
The Courier can find 37 gold bars in the Sierra Madre vault, which is accessible only during the quest Heist of the Centuries. Due to their tremendous weight and the script of the final questline, it is difficult, but not impossible, to retrieve them all.
There are 36 gold bars on a table to the right as the player character opens the vault door together with some pre-War money and Sierra Madre chips, and the 37th is on the desk near the vault control terminal.
Notes
- The gold bars are symbolic of the Sierra Madre's moral lesson. The 37 bars found have immense value, but are not meant to be obtainable outside the vault, due to their extraordinarily high weight and the fact that one attempting to keep them (without utilizing a glitch or sneaking with movement speed bonuses) will die. This is a nod to the message constantly restated in the add-on: the hardest part of the Sierra Madre is letting go.
- This item is the fourth most valuable item in New Vegas, being surpassed in value only by the unique Tesla-Beaton prototype, Red Glare and Elijah's jury-rigged Tesla cannon. 37 bars are found in the game, adding up to a value of 390,239 caps and a total weight of 1,295 pounds.
- Possible buyers of gold bars:
- Sink Central Intelligence Unit has a variable high amount, up to 24,000 caps.
- Blake will sometimes spawn with 12,000 caps or more.
- The hologram vendors in the Sierra Madre each have 2,500 units of pre-War money.
- The Vendortron at the Gun Runners has around 8,000 caps.
- The Quartermaster in the Brotherhood of Steel Bunker; Knight Torres often has 8,000 caps.
- Daniel Contreras, the NCR supply merchant in Camp McCarran, also usually has 8,000 caps or more.
- Arms merchant, A supply merchant at the 188 Trading Post usually has around 8,000 caps or more.
- Alexander, a Gun Runner merchant at the 188 Trading Post also has 8,000 caps or more.
- Old Lady Gibson may have 8,000 or more caps later in the game.
- The Commissary terminals in the Divide will have around 6,000 caps, and will replenish anytime their reserves drop below 200 caps after the player character exits the menu.
- Calamity in the Jacobstown lodge usually has around 4,000 caps or more later in the game.
- The total weight of the 37 gold bars combined is 1,295 pounds, but the highest possible Carry Weight that can be reached in Dead Money by normal means is 375 (10 Strength, the Strong Back and Burden to Bear perks, the Hoarder trait). This means that a maximum of 10 of the 37 bars (for a total of 350) can be taken without the Courier becoming overencumbered.
- A gold bar cannot be moved with the "grab" command when dropped.
- Despite their large base value, gold bars are only worth 301 caps or roughly 750 NCR dollars per pound.
- The gold bar shares the same Pip-Boy icon as the steel ingot from the Fallout 3 add-on The Pitt.
- The imprint on the gold bars says "10 oz pure gold," however, this does not make any sense given their size and weight. A ten troy ounce bar of gold in real life is much smaller than the gold bar presented in game. Weighing 35 pounds would put these bars at 510.4 troy ounces of gold, which is not a regularly traded gold bar. The most common large gold bar is 400 ounces, which is physically larger than the ones in game appear to be.
