IGB, noun

Forms:
Also I.G.B.
Origin:
Initial letters of illicit gold buying (or, rarely, illicit gold buyer).
Note:
Cf. IDB.
1. Illicit gold buying. Also attributive.
1893 Poster, Witwatersrand Mine Employees & Mechanics UnionGold Thefts Bill! I.G.B., the shadow of the I.D.B.
1897 G. Albu in Mining Industry: Report of Industrial Commiss. of Enquiry (Witwatersrand Chamber of Mines) 26A large number must be thriving on the ill-gotten gains of I.G.B. The proof of that we have in the quantity of people who are doing absolutely nothing, and they live in a very good manner.
1899 F.R.M. Cleaver in M.M. Cleaver Young S. Afr. (1913) 27We shall have some most glorious work before us, exterminating the illicit sale of liquor to natives. We shall also tackle the I.G.B. (illicit gold buying). Both of these evils have assumed such gigantic proportions as to be a menace to the life of the State.
1899 W.F. Moneypenny in C. Headlam Milner Papers (1931) I. 344Thieving from the mine and I.G.B. (illicit gold buying) was estimated by the Industrial Commission as costing the industry no less than three-quarters of a million sterling a year.
1900 T. Froes Kruger & Co. 6No doubt can possibly exist as to the reality of the evil in question, and..as the enormous sums stolen represent an absolutely dead loss to the industry and a consequent curtailment of dividend-paying power, this matter of ‘I.G.B.’ is one which directly concerns every shareholder in ‘The Witwatersrand Gold Mining Companies’.
1979 J. Gratus Jo’burgers 256I.G.B. was the poor man’s passport to..the life of sweet idleness such as he believed the magnates lived. I.G.B. was the magic that could turn a black man into a white man and a white man into a king. I.G.B. was illicit gold buying.
1983 J. De Ridder Sad Laughter Mem. 131He knows the I.G.B. squad’s reputation as well as I do. The Illicit Gold Buying branch of the South African Police is one of the cleverest and hardest teams to beat.
1990 J.G. Davis Land God Made in Anger 178Unlicensed dealing in gold is a serious offence in South Africa — IGB.
2. rare. An illicit gold buyer.
1945 N. Devitt People & Places 146A prosecution of the big I.G.B. — illicit gold buyer — is rarely heard of.
Illicit gold buying. Also attributive.
An illicit gold buyer.
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18931990