# Has gold ever been worthless? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 19, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gold-ever-been-worthless/468646 "2008-10-19T17:37:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gold-ever-been-worthless/468646/21 "2008-10-20T16:26:26Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > What’s interesting is that one could say that gold has intrinsic value as a medium of exchange, especially in less advanced civilizations. > > - It’s rare enough that you can’t just dig up gold in your front yard, but not so rare that you can’t get enough volume to trade back and forth. > > - It’s non-reactive, so it lasts practically forever in it’s elemental state. > > - It doesn’t require complex smelting techniques, it has a low melting point and is easy to separate from other metals. > > - It is soft, easy to work with simple tools. > > - It’s more dense than just about any other naturally occurring substance, the ones that are more dense are more rare. You can’t fake density, this is a very important attribute for a medium of exchange. > > If you were choosing to design a medium of exchange, I’m not sure what properties one would assign to it that gold doesn’t have. But in places where it has been plentiful, as West Africa and pre Columbian Americas, it was not used as money. In Africa other items were used as money, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gold-ever-been-worthless/468646/22 "2008-10-20T16:49:40Z")
I think that an _ideal_ medium of exchange would be something that could be produced in effectively unlimited quantities, but at a cost, and which has a real, practical use. The ability to produce more of it would allow it to keep up with a growing economy, and the practical use would stabilize the price. The best idea I’ve been able to come up with (in the modern world, at least) is doped silicon. I also read a story once where coffee emerged as a de facto medium of exchange, since anyone could harvest the abundantly-growing beans, but it was a lot of work to climb up the mountain to get them, and enough people liked coffee to make it worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gold-ever-been-worthless/468646/23 "2008-10-20T17:04:56Z")
Was gold ever plentiful enough that it really didn’t require any effort to gather? ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gold-ever-been-worthless/468646/24 "2008-10-20T17:29:04Z")
One of the _Hitchhiker’s_ trilogy mentioned a society of people who had been abandoned on a forested planet. They adopted the leaf as their currency, and IIRC, they were persistently troubled by hyperinflation. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gold-ever-been-worthless/468646/25 "2008-10-20T17:40:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think that an _ideal_ medium of exchange would be something that could be produced in effectively unlimited quantities, but at a cost, and which has a real, practical use. The ability to produce more of it would allow it to keep up with a growing economy, and the practical use would stabilize the price. The best idea I’ve been able to come up with (in the modern world, at least) is doped silicon. I also read a story once where coffee emerged as a de facto medium of exchange, since anyone could harvest the abundantly-growing beans, but it was a lot of work to climb up the mountain to get them, and enough people liked coffee to make it worthwhile. If I remember correctly, Silicon was the medium of exchange in Blish’s _Cities in Flight_. > [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > One of the _Hitchhiker’s_ trilogy mentioned a society of people who had been abandoned on a forested planet. They adopted the leaf as their currency, and IIRC, they were persistently troubled by hyperinflation. That’s what forest fires are for… ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gold-ever-been-worthless/468646/26 "2008-10-20T18:11:57Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > What’s interesting is that one could say that gold has intrinsic value as a medium of exchange, especially in less advanced civilizations. > > - It’s rare enough that you can’t just dig up gold in your front yard, but not so rare that you can’t get enough volume to trade back and forth. > > - It’s non-reactive, so it lasts practically forever in it’s elemental state. > > - It doesn’t require complex smelting techniques, it has a low melting point and is easy to separate from other metals. > > - It is soft, easy to work with simple tools. > > - It’s more dense than just about any other naturally occurring substance, the ones that are more dense are more rare. You can’t fake density, this is a very important attribute for a medium of exchange. > > If you were choosing to design a medium of exchange, I’m not sure what properties one would assign to it that gold doesn’t have. Don’t forget another couple: 1. it’s fungible – one bit of gold (in bulk) is exactly the same as another bit; and 2. it’s completely dividable - half of a gold ingot is worth half of a whole ingot (as opposed to say, horses, where half of a horse isn’t very valuable). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-gold-ever-been-worthless/468646.md?page=1)