One of Germany's wealthiest families has revived a household name in the bullion industry with its purchase of 150-year Degussa, a gold and silver producer, that aims to tap into soaring domestic demand for gold as the euro zone stutters.

Degussa, formerly known as the Deutsche Gold- und Silber-Scheidenanstalt, has operated for the last 10 years as a subsidiary, firstly belonging to U.S. industrial group OM Group and then under Belgian chemical company and metal producer Umicore, before the trademark and name were bought this year by the Von Finck family, whose forbearers included Wilhelm von Finck, founder of Allianz, Europe's largest insurer.

The company, which trades under the name Degussa Sonne/Mond Goldhandel GmbH, harking back to sun and moon alchemy symbols on its logo, has a retail outlet in Munich from which it sells bars and coins, but will be headquartered in Frankfurt, where it aims to offer investors gold, silver, platinum and palladium and also is looking to anchor its position in the sector by offering vaulting services to store bars and coins.

"Degussa is known by the public in Germany for its investment bars, but the retail investor was never the focus of the gold Degussa and now it is clearly our focus," managing director Wolfgang Wrzesniok-Rosbach told Reuters, adding that the company was not planning to compete with the banks, but rather create a niche with smaller-scale investors.

"The old Degussa was an industrial company and now we are a precious metal trading and investment company. There is an absolute difference in terms of the character of the company."

The euro zone sovereign debt crisis has already engulfed the single currency bloc's more vulnerable members such as Greece and Portugal and is now swirling around some of the so-called core countries such as AAA-rated France and Austria, pounding the euro and hitting European equities.

In Germany, Europe's largest investment market for gold where the name Degussa is almost as synonymous with gold bars as "Kleenex" is for tissues, this has led to a doubling in gold investment in the third quarter of this year, according to figures from the World Gold Council.

Germans bought 59.3 tons of gold coins and bars in the three months to September compared with a year earlier as lack of confidence in the stability of the euro underperforming stock markets left many investors nursing losses, while the price of gold surged to a record $1,920.30 an ounce in September. It now trades at $1,745 an ounce, up 30% in the last year.

Bars Of All Sizes

Degussa's initial offering of physical metal for investment will include products in all four major precious metals, with the smallest being a 100 g gold bar up to a 5 kg silver bar, Wrzesniok-Rosbach said.

In its new guise, Degussa will not offer smelting and fabrication facilities as it once did, but rather an online bullion shop, with which aims to go live before the end of the year, and investment coins and bars, tapping into demand from the retail sector, institutions and wealthy individuals, not only in Germany, but also in neighbouring Switzerland and possibly beyond, Wrzesniok-Rosbach said.

Many investors choose now to buy into gold through exchange-traded funds, which issue shares backed by physical bars of metal that are then stored on an unallocated basis, meaning the holder of the shares does not possess a certificate listing the serial numbers of the bars they own, but rather a certificate of ownership of a set number of bars, without specifying their serial numbers or location.

Degussa, like many larger trading houses and investment banks that deal in precious metals such as JPMorgan Chase or Barclays, plans to either buy or build vaults to store its customers' bullion, which would most likely be held on an allocated basis, giving ownership of specific bars in a specific warehouse.

"We are currently looking at storage facilities, which we might use in the future. (Bars) could be allocated or unallocated but I guess the majority of customers investing in gold in this way, I imagine, would be looking for allocated bars," Wrzesniok-Rosbach said.