History of Man and His Gold

The history of gold is virtually the history of man's civilization.  Over the centuries, gold is been the accurate measure and mirror of man's aspirations and motivations, faithfully revealing our efforts in its gleaming surfaces.  Yet gold is so remarkably impervious to the effects of time while it shows the instincts of mankind both noble and base. There is little question that gold has shaped and enhanced our lives, yet it has occasionally destroyed entire civilizations.

Gold is like nothing else see my man under the sun, sky and sea.  It’s beautiful qualities are both overwhelmingly practical and yet somehow mystical.  Wherever gold has become the basis of economic life, it’s flow and movement has created paths that have changed forever the destiny of men and nations.  Over the centuries, gold has assumed  many additional roles, especially in our age of sophistication and technology. Gold is still priced as a store of money and value, but it has many uses. While its principal use is still in jewelry, gold now has many additional applications in our contemporary life. Gold has soared into space with the astronauts, its reflective ability used on the heat shields that are critical to life.  It is used in medicine and dentistry as well as a number of industries and especially in electronics.  Because of its great resistance to corrosion, gold is used as an electrical contact material, and this has put gold into hundreds of hi-tech electronics applications from TV sets to telephones, computers, cell phones and calculators, there is no question that this metal has proven its contemporary worth.

Valued by both individuals and governments, gold is become increasingly accepted as a viable medium of investment in the United States. This is largely due to the development of exchange-traded funds that buy and hold gold for investors. They have become increasingly important in recent years and are spreading from the US market to investment markets around the world. Historically, gold has been an important store hold of wealth for families in Europe, India and China. As the developing markets of the world increase in wealth, gold investment from the residents of countries such as India and China continues to accelerate. In times of inflation or monetary devaluation, gold holds a value that cannot be destroyed by the greed, mistakes and errors of human governments. This fact holds a great appeal for residents of countries with unstable and unreliable governments.

Gold is actually all around us.  It is both seen and unseen.  It exists in the earth's crust in the season, rivers and implants.  It exists, in minute quantities, even in our bodies.  About 10,000,000,000 tons of gold are estimated to be held suspended in ocean waters of the world.  Unfortunately the cost of removing that gold from the ocean makes its recovery highly uneconomic.  The search for gold remains exciting, dramatically speculative, and an adventure of high stakes, high risks and higher rewards.  Were gold does exist in payable quantities, it is still difficult and expensive to mine, and often five to 10 tons of ore must be mined and processed to extract just 1 ounce of gold.  As a result, there is no reason to wonder why gold is such a rare and expensive material.