If you’re interested in Owning Gold, then it is probably not a bad idea to learn as much about it as you can.

Pure gold is said to be 24 carats fine. The amount of baser metal alloyed with gold is indicated by a proportional decrease in the number of carats fineness. Thus, 18-carat gold is 18/24 gold and 6/24 base metal. When used in this sense the word carat is commonly spelled with a K.

Gold is a commodity. It differs from other commodities in that it is so acceptable in the eyes of so many. But apart from its distinctive attractiveness, which is a matter of preference, gold acts in the marketplace exactly like any other commodity. The relative difference is that the number of willing customers is vastly greater than for other commodities.

Emotional lure of gold

Gold is one of the world’s most emotional subjects. Any emotional item has the quality of causing individuals to act. People sacrifice, steal, risk family and life, even kill to obtain gold.

What makes gold so desirable? Gold is easily stored. It is attractive to the eye, does not easily tarnish, can be easily coined, easily worked into ornaments. Gold is useful in industry. That’s a part of it.

But there’s a mystery about gold; gold is desirable because others are always willing to accept it in exchange for usable goods, and they are willing to accept gold because gold is ever desirable. The thing sort of feeds upon itself.

The problem with an emotional subject is that almost nobody can think when he or she is emotional. That may explain why the role of gold is so poorly understood. Emotion over gold tends to step between our thought processes and the subject.

To take the emotional charge off the subject of gold, substitute the name of any other useful commodity that is small in bulk, easily divided, easily stored, and fairly durable

Panning for gold is done after the spring run-off is over. Gold is heavy and settles to the bottom of a riverbed. Once the river is down, you have to dig down two or three feet. That’s where the pay dirt is. Not on top where most amateurs try their luck. And don’t find it.

Swirling a half cup or a cup of gravel in a little water settles the gold to the bottom. You keep discarding from the top until there’s nothing left but black sand and fine gravel. This is the “concentrate”. Gold won’t show up till the last spoonful of sand in the pan.

Mercury was used to retrieve the really fine gold, the stuff too fine to see. Before the toxicity of mercury was a concern, prospectors added two or three drops of mercury after the picked-over concentrate was dried out. The gold dust would adhere to the mercury balls. These were put in a cup. When water was added, the mercury rose to the top (it could be reused) and the gold stayed at the bottom.

Gold is said to be of volcanic origin, created from gases down below. Gold veins were pressed into fissures of the earth. Prospectors who are hardrock miners work into the mountains, always looking for a new vein to follow. Placer gold is surface gold, What made placer mining possible in the Mother Load was a giant upheaval 20-25 million years ago.

At that time, a large river flowed north to south. This upheaval changed the direction of the stream. Instead of one large north-south river, the waters created the numerous east-to-west rivers that now exist. Most of the old river bed became exposed. Some of the riverbed remnants, along with their gold content, are on top of ridges.

Owning gold is like owning anything else – coal, oil, real estate or a supermarket. There are two ways to do it. The direct way is to buy the asset whatever that is. The indirect way is to buy the securities of companies owning the assets wanted.

Gold is sometimes regarded as different from other commodities. The claim made for it by its devotees is that it is a store of value providing the standard by which all other commodities are priced.

Unlike artificially created currencies, gold is thought by some to be out of the reach of manipulating politicians. They can create paper money, the gold-lovers point out, but finance ministers and central bankers can’t make gold.

So, the “gold bugs” say, one can sleep soundly at night, secure in the knowledge that gold will always retain its basic value. People of many lands will always accept it and trade goods and services for it. They always have.

In the world of depreciating currencies, the believers in owning gold say that it will continue to go up in price. Indeed, as the record of the past three years shows, gold has risen faster in price than the inflation indices of even the most sorely afflicted industrial countries.