The Lure Of Gold

(Abu Dubai,  January 23, 2008 Ceegaag Online)  

THE Somali-born lady in the queue at Dubai Airport was having problems getting Customs to accept her Australian passport while weighed down by her toddler son and oodles of jewellery.

She carried a cheap, battered suitcase, but her wrists and ankles were adorned with many necklaces, bracelets and chains of shining gold.

Her taxi driver husband was at home in their Flemington high-rise Housing Commission flat, while she spent thousands of his hard-earned at Dubai's famed gold marketplace.

But that old suitcase filled with gold jewellery to go under their bed was the couple's bank -- the only wealth they possessed and trusted.

That trip to the world's biggest gold market must have seemed the best investment when gold prices hit a record $US915 ($1053) an ounce last week.

As share prices tumble, more investors are putting their money back into gold.

"At a time where markets overseas seem to have forgotten some fundamentals about security, about credit and risk, gold is reliable and proven,'' says resource analyst Gavin Wendt, of Fat Prophets.

"It is a tangible commodity, back to basics.''

For that Somali lady, and people of many other cultures, gold is more than an alluring colour - it's a rare metal and an article of mystical faith.

It retains a timeless status as an alternative and permanent store of value, where currencies become worn or fall out of use.

It's twice as heavy as lead but malleable enough to fill teeth, decorate food, line the lunar module and be used in electronic components. Nations have arisen and fallen on gold.

It doesn't disintegrate - nearly all of the 100,000 tonnes mined over the past 6000 years is still held. Half of it has been dug up since 1970.

Gold was valued by the Greek, Mycean and Egyptian civilisations, with hieroglyphics from 2600BC describing it and King Tushratta of Mitanni stating it was "more plentiful than dirt'' in Egypt.

The funeral mask of the boy King Tutankhamen found by Howard Carter in 1922 proved the advanced state of metallurgy in Egypt.

Greek hero Jason searched for the Golden Fleece with the Argonauts in an age where animal skins were used to trap alluvial gold dust.

The Old and New Testaments carry tales of gold wealth: the Three Wise Men presenting it to baby Jesus; Moses enriching the Queen of Sheba bringing the equivalent of six tonnes worth to King Solomon.

Rome's emperors were featured on pure gold coins. The European conquest of the Americas and Africa was linked to a quest for gold.

The gold of South Africa, battling to maintain status as the largest producer, was a prime reason behind the Boer War of 1899-1902.

In the 1850s, our own Victorian community was founded on a gold boom. Lasseter's Reef remains an enduring outback legend.

Singers are awarded gold records, TV stars seek a gold Logie, Olympians aspire to gold medals, good school work merits a gold star and most girls still want a gold wedding ring.

In 1948, Humphrey Bogart starred in John Huston's gold-fever movie The Treasure of Sierra Madre, which took three golden Oscar statuettes.

Who could forget the glistening hour-glass figures of the dying beauties painted with gold in the Bond movie Goldfinger in 1964?

Even an Austin Powers film took its title cue from the precious metal with a glittering Beyonce Knowles co-starring in Goldmember.

"There have been a lot of arguments, at various times that gold had become irrelevant as an investment but now it is back,'' says Dr Sandra Close, of mining consultants Surbiton Associates.

"Why? It's social and historical. When the chips are down, what do you turn to? Like the Somali lady, a lot of the Vietnamese boat people brought gold with them.

"A small piece of gold is readily tradeable at a set price. Unlike diamonds, it has a uniform value and it will never perish.

"It is why Indian cultures and the Chinese culture values gold. It can be a bank, a store, a last resort in times of difficulty.''

Pure gold is 24 carat (k), with traditional gold coins 22k.

Jewellery mixed with alloys such as copper or silver range down to 10k.

Since 1851, Australia has had three major gold rushes -- the biggest in value has been post-1982.

That's largely unappreciated by the public, says Dr Close, author of The Great Gold Renaissance.
It has seen production rise 10-fold from less than 30 tonnes in 1982 to a record-high 318 tonnes in 1997.

By comparison, production peaked at 90 tonnes a year in 1856 from alluvial surface gold, then 120 tonnes in 1903 from the Kalgoorlie-Boulder-Coolgardie mining rush in WA.

In 2004-2005, Australia exported nearly $2.8 billion in gold to India, with the metal one of our top seven exports worth about $7 billion a year.

South Africa produced 1000 tonnes or 79 per cent of world supply in 1970, but increased costs over mining has seen production decline.

China is set to take over as the world's No. 1 gold producer.

From Britain's tying the pound to a gold standard in 1842, most world currencies revolved around values linked to gold well into the 1920s.

The problems came as pressure increased on any one nation to devalue its currency, as the true worth of its economy declined.

The abandonment of the gold standard and devaluation of the British sterling, compared with the US dollar during the Depression in January 1931, was final confirmation that America had become the world's most powerful economy.

From 1934 until August 1971, gold was fixed at $US35, but the birth of the International Monetary Fund in 1944-45 ended other currencies based on gold. America's post-war prosperity ruled. But after 1971, world events influenced the price.

After the 1973 oil price shock, it reached $US200, then the previous record of $US835 in January 1980, after the Iranian revolution and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

It may no longer underpin the world economy, but it keeps coming back as the prized alloy as it has retained its value through history.

"Why else would the US keep a reserve of over four tonnes in Fort Knox,'' asks Dr Close.

"It is like a separate currency, a final underpinning.''

That's why some people keep their wealth in suitcases under their beds.

Source: NEWS.com

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