The ERA of 'Four-Figure' Gold--What It Means for Jewelry, Mining and Specimens

摘要

Just 18 months ago, when gold was selling for $800 per troy ounce, metal-market analysts were debating whether its price would ever top $ 1,000. As of late September 2010, gold has topped $1,300 per ounce and those same analysts are wondering whether the price will ever again drop below $1,000. Today's four-figure gold prices make me think back to 1972 when I spent a summer sluicing gold out of an Alaskan creek. At the end of the season, I kept an ounce of nuggets and sold 11 ounces of grains and flakes. Although gold had not yet formally become a free-market commodity at that time, speculation had already driven its price to $120 per troy ounce. Accustomed to the former fixed price of $35 per ounce, I was quite elated to sell 11 ounces of raw placer gold for $1,000. But gold prices have since increased more than tenfold and, looking back, I wish that I still had that gold today. Gold prices of $ 1,3 00 per troy ounce are a record high, but only in terms of numerical-dollar value. The economic high price actually came in 1980, when gold surged above $800. Adjusting for inflation, that $800 of 1980 has the purchasing power of $2,300 today.