Red gold price in the market was balanced

“Red gold” in this report means saffron, not precious-metal gold. In a 2015 interview from Mashhad, Gholamreza Miri, then head of the Khorasan Razavi Saffron Exporters Union, said the saffron market had returned to a more balanced state as harvest-season prices settled and trading emerged from an earlier slowdown.

His word “today” belonged to 28 November 2015, the date of this article. The price, export reach and market conditions below are a historical snapshot. They are not today’s saffron price in Mashhad and have no connection to the current gold price.

The historical red gold price range

Miri placed the wholesale saffron price at roughly 4.35 million to 5.5 million tomans per kilogram. The former English text broke the two numbers apart and labelled parts of them as dollars. Read in their original order, they are Iranian toman amounts: 4 million 350 thousand to 5 million 500 thousand tomans.

The report did not name a saffron grade. Negin, Sargol, Pushal and other commercial forms do not necessarily trade at the same level, and lot quality, quantity, payment terms and delivery point can change a quote. The range is therefore more defensible than one exact “market price,” but it still describes only that interview period.

Converting this old figure at a current exchange rate would create a false comparison. Iran’s prices, currency conditions, production costs and market structure have changed since 2015. The useful unit here is the one Miri stated at the time: tomans per kilogram.

What “the market was balanced” meant

Miri said extreme price swings had eased and the market had moved out of a period of stagnation caused by rising prices in previous months. In that context, balance meant that supply and demand were meeting without the sharp volatility that had made buyers hesitate.

It did not mean every participant received a fair return, that all grades had one price or that the market would remain stable. Agricultural supply changes quickly during harvest. Growers may need cash and sell early; exporters may wait for customer orders; traders may hold stock. A short calm period can sit inside a much less stable season.

The completed guide to saffron price stability follows several such episodes and explains why harvest arrivals, grade, stored stock, rumours and export demand can move a quote. This page has a narrower purpose: preserve and test Miri’s specific 2015 Mashhad interview.

Harvest season changed the available supply

The interview came during saffron harvest. Fresh lots were entering the market, giving exporters and wholesalers more product to evaluate and reducing the scarcity pressure that had contributed to earlier price rises.

The original report did not publish arrivals by day, warehouse stocks or a transaction series. “Balanced” was Miri’s assessment as an exporters-union representative, not a calculated market index. It is useful evidence of industry sentiment; it is not proof that the quoted range applied to every sale across Khorasan Razavi.

A proper historical price record would identify the grade, quality test, lot size, seller, delivery place, payment method and quote-validity period. Without those details, the number should be used to understand the period, not to value a specific batch.

The claim that Khorasan saffron reached 47 countries

Miri said demand from foreign buyers was strong and that Khorasan saffron was exported to 47 countries. He grouped the principal destinations into Europe, the Persian Gulf, China and India.

The figure is preserved as his claim. The article provides no customs period, country list, export weight or value, and “Khorasan saffron” is not necessarily a separate customs category. It would be unsafe to present 47 as a current count or to assume that all destinations bought similar quantities.

The geographic list still reveals the commercial problem exporters were trying to solve. They needed enough dependable supply to serve buyers with different grade, packaging, documentation and delivery requirements. A stable domestic purchase price made those contracts easier to quote.

Why Miri was concerned about speculators

Miri described speculative traders as a serious threat to the export market. His argument was that well-financed buyers could wait for harvest pressure, buy saffron from farmers, hold it until the market tightened, then release it at a higher price. The damaged translation used a Persian expression equivalent to fishing in troubled waters.

That is an attributed market explanation, not a measured finding. The article supplies no trader names, stock records, dates or transaction data that would establish how much of the price movement came from speculative holding. Production, grade mix, export orders, currency and growers’ selling decisions could also affect the balance.

Storage and intermediation are not automatically harmful. Saffron has to be aggregated, tested, stored, packed and moved from many farms to domestic and foreign buyers. The concern begins when one party’s information or financial advantage makes prices opaque, or when concentrated stock is used to exaggerate scarcity.

The related historical analysis of speculators in the saffron market examines that mechanism in more depth, including short-lived quotations, licensing and traceability. This article retains only the concern Miri raised in the 2015 balanced-market interview.

Export decline was presented as a warning

Miri linked a recent decline in saffron exports to the market conditions and the role he attributed to speculators. The old English sentence is incomplete and gives no percentage, period, customs dataset or destination-level change. It supports the fact that he raised export decline as a concern; it cannot quantify it.

This distinction prevents a common error in old market stories. A speaker’s explanation is evidence of what industry representatives believed, but it is not automatically proof of causation. To test the claim, an analyst would need monthly export weight and value, comparable domestic prices, harvest arrivals, currency movements and inventory data for the same dates.

The proposal for affordable producer credit

At the end of the interview, Miri called affordable lending to saffron producers one of the most important forms of government support. The logic was that growers with access to working capital would be less compelled to sell immediately under harvest pressure.

The report does not name a loan programme, interest rate, eligibility rule or amount. It should not be read as an offer that exists today. Credit can improve a grower’s timing choices, but only when repayment dates, collateral, crop risk and total interest fit the farm’s cash flow.

How to use this 2015 Mashhad price report

The article preserves five defensible points:

• Gholamreza Miri spoke in Mashhad as head of the Khorasan Razavi Saffron Exporters Union;
• he described the saffron market as more balanced during the 2015 harvest;
• he quoted a historical range of about 4.35–5.5 million tomans per kilogram;
• he said Khorasan saffron reached 47 countries, chiefly across Europe, the Persian Gulf, China and India; and
• he warned about speculative stockholding and advocated affordable credit for producers.

Everything else needs more data. The report does not identify grade, transaction evidence, a current price, a current destination count or the measured effect of traders. Its value is as a dated record of how an exporters-union representative read the market—not as a live price board.

The speaker, price range, destination claim and market concerns are preserved from this site’s 28 November 2015 report. Related union and market records were reviewed on 29 August 2026.