Why Is Gold Considered So Valuable. It Is Not The Rarest Metal, It Is Not ...

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Brian Robinson, Brentwood Essex

• Gold is not the rarest metal, but it's quite hard to find and extract in large quantities with pre-industrial technology. Its principal characteristics of being highly corrosion-resistant and easily worked made it highly desirable (and still do) for decorative purposes, and even more so industrially, e.g. where you need high quality electrical connectors.

  Robert Ward, Leeds UK

• Mainly ancient tradition. It is fairly easy to process and as far as ancient people were concerned it was indestructible it does not tarnish like silver or copper. It does not dissolve in normal acids and solvents. It is pretty and if you alloy it with other metals it can have a variety of colours. Ancient people used it as a form of exchange as people desired it and if you put it in a damp cupboard it would still be unchanged when you came to use it. Gold has retained its value because it is still rare and people like to adorn them selves with it. Its rarity is explained at http://money.howstuffworks.com/question213.htm The site gives a guesstimate of total gold production since the beginning of human metallurgy as ten thousand million troy ounces (or if my sums are anything like right about 322 metric tones). Platinum is much rarer. The entire world’s production could probably fit in your living room but I challenge you to tell at a distance to tell if a ring was made of platinum white gold (gold silver alloy) or aluminum. If the rest of the world can’t tell if your bling is “real” the show-off value is reduced, that is why for "look at me I’m loaded" statements it is gold every time. Once Napoleon served a state banquet on Aluminum plates as it was much more valuable than gold at the time. Once the rarity was lost the value was gone. If the Apollo astronauts had discovered that moon dust was universally rich in gold the price of the stuff would probably have plummeted.

  G Baker, South Ockendon, UK