Gold in the World

During the time that gold was sold for $35 after the devaluation in the 1930’s, a gram of gold was worth $1.12. If gold is at $100 per ounce, it would be equal to $3.22, and the deposits of gold that did not seem to be rich for mining are now becoming very rich. Gold is in fact a soft metal; it is very malleable and can be easily shaped. Not only this, but gold is very resistant to becoming tarnished and corroded. Given its beauty, durability, workability, and common occurrence as a native metal, gold was one of the first metals that man found and used. Since a long time ago, gold has been one of the most major means of international monetary exchange, and its physical properties have made it so popular that it is prized and used in jewelry and other special ornaments. Gold has been associated to wealth and all of the lost gold mines and the hidden bandit and pilot hoards are not something that can be equaled to that of any other commodity. These days we are now finding more and more weekend prospectors that are hoping to find their lucky strike and some have indeed. It has been estimated that the amount of gold that has been mined since the time in which Christopher Columbus discovered the New World has been around 2 1/2 billion ounces. It is not precisely known how much was produced previous to this time; however a realistic guess lead to an estimation of around 3 billion ounces all around the world. Given that gold is indestructible (the only exception is in aqua regia, which is a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids that can dissolve platinum as well), it’s beauty, and the intrinsic value it has, gold lives on and on. While some gold has gotten lost in sunken ships, buried by people that were never able to find it again or that died, lost mines etc. a great amount of all the gold that has been discovered and produced can be accounted for. The official monetary reserves are around 1.3 billion ounces. There is a difference in this amount and the estimated total production the world is around 1.7 billion ounces though. This amount, minus the rest of the gold that is leftover, provides an array of the amount of gold that is in jewelry, teeth, bar, coin collections, museums, adornments, church decorations, electric equipment, and so forth. As can be seen, the amount that is used is huge, but some points of view can be obtained from the fact that during 1966 to 1967, in one year alone, all of the gold that had been mined, which was around 120 million ounces that came from the U.S.S.R. plus around 66 million ounces from the official reserves that were not communist, went into private holdings.