Gold was most likely discovered 5,000 years ago and is mentioned the Bible more than 400 times. Gold was made popular by the Egyptians and Sumerians who used it as decoration and as a symbol of wealth. The Romans used gold and fine gems for marriage. Gold has been used for adornment and money in early civilization. Gold’s association with power, scarcity, luster, malleability, durability, longevity and store of wealth has a clear advantages as money and serves wonderfully well for coinage.
People like representation of their labor and tangible representation of their accumulated wealth. Gold unique characteristics makes it a natural choice as a store of wealth. When the need for money grew; the Assyrians developed uniform gold bars for efficiency and convenience. Money in convenient form created a demand for goldsmiths, money changers, and bankers. Lydian was the first to use coins and Greeks were first to make coinage an art form.
Gold is probably the most liquidable physical asset and considered by many as the ultimate possession to own. It is a powerful and important component of the world economy.
Gold is a fascinating asset in that it has very little practical use but because of it’s history, scarcity and unique properties makes it very desirable. Gold is truly an international currency and traded all over the world. People’s greed, fear and desire for beauty will certainly create insatiable demand for gold in the foreseable future.
People have become obsessed, inspired, haunted, exalted, intoxicated and even humbled over pieces of gold. People like physical tangible representation of wealth which will continue to make gold a respectable substance.
Gold’s natural attributes are that it is soft, durable, dense, imperishable, malleable, chemically inert and does not fragment or oxidize easily. Gold is soft yet very dense (A cubic foot weighs a half ton). It is imperishable and extremely malleable and can be hammered to five-millionths of an inch which is called gilding. Gold chemical symbol is AU and is chemically inert and resists oxidation which makes it radiate forever. Gold’s longevity is forever!
Gold is rare and yet has been discovered on every continent on earth. It we gathered all the gold in the world today, it would weigh approximately 125,000 tons which is 4,000,000,000 ounces. Finding and producing gold requires a tremendous amount of effort and is not easy to mine. As one source describe mining for gold, “To produce one ounce of fine gold requires 38 man hours, 1400 gallons of water, electricity to run a large house for 10 days, 282 to 565 cubic feet of air under straining pressure, and quantities of chemicals including cyanide, acids, lea, borax, and lime.”
Gold has been a store of wealth and a form of money. Except for jewelry and decoration, gold is useless in practical sense because it is so soft. And it is so scarce if needed in huge quantities. Because of the limited supply of gold, it falls short if you need it in in huge quantities.
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