# Why is gold so valuable?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 30, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623 "2012-11-30T23:09:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/1 "2012-11-30T23:09:21Z")
As best as I can tell, gold has been historically coveted because it is pretty and rare. Otherwise, it is soft and heavy, so I can’t imagine that it has much practical utility (unlike, say, diamonds, which are exceptionally hard). Is there any other reason to account for gold’s immense value throughout history?
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### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/2 "2012-11-30T23:12:41Z")
Properties.
Extremely dense and heavy.
Beautiful.
Incredibly malleable. Gold can be hammered to extremely thin leaf without cracking apart. It can be more easily worked than just about any other metal.
Doesn’t corrode.
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### Author:  [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/3 "2012-11-30T23:13:36Z")
> [@Moriarty](#):
>
> [G]old has been historically coveted because it is pretty and rare.
Not really much else to it…you pretty much nailed it. Its softness also makes it easy to work with re: jewelry etc. Note that not every culture used gold as a standard currency or anything. Imperial China generally used silver.
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### Author:  [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/4 "2012-11-30T23:14:37Z")
**Chimera** beat me to it. Quite…punctually! (I slay me)
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/5 "2012-11-30T23:18:41Z")
> [@Chimera](#):
>
> Doesn’t corrode.
I suspect this is the most important factor. Most other metals oxidize easily. This is also why it’s still valuable for jewelry and electronics (electrical contacts are gold-plated to prevent corrosion).
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/6 "2012-11-30T23:19:07Z")
So, we’re really just a simple-minded species, in pursuit of the prettiest thing we can adorn ourselves with? It puts the vast human history of frequent war and contest in a peculiar light.
ETA: with electronics and the corrosion thing, I get the value aspect. But most conflict in pursuit of gold predates electronic technology.
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### Author:  [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/7 "2012-11-30T23:30:56Z")
> [@Moriarty](#):
>
> So, we’re really just a simple-minded species, in pursuit of the prettiest thing we can adorn ourselves with? It puts the vast human history of frequent war and contest in a peculiar light.
If you think about it, that’s still far and above the “have sex to make more of us” impulse that really defines all species. I’m curious–do you have any theories about its appeal?
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/8 "2012-11-30T23:36:01Z")
> [@Chimera](#):
>
> Properties.
>
> Extremely dense and heavy.
> Beautiful.
>
> Incredibly malleable. Gold can be hammered to extremely thin leaf without cracking apart. It can be more easily worked than just about any other metal.
>
> Doesn’t corrode.
And it’s found in nature in metallic form - unlike most other metals - so it probably has the longest history of being worked
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/9 "2012-11-30T23:57:57Z")
p.s. The chemical stability and scarcity make it a good choice for currency.
The malleability (as Chimera mentioned) is important for use as decoration. It only takes 45 pounds of gold to cover an [entire 2-story building](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkaku-ji). (Actually it would take less than 10 pounds using standard thickness gold foil, but they chose to use 5x thick foil the last time this building was rebuilt.)
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/10 "2012-11-30T23:59:33Z")
> [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](#):
>
> If you think about it, that’s still far and above the “have sex to make more of us” impulse that really defines all species. I’m curious–do you have any theories about its appeal?
Nope. I always presumed that human motivations were fairly basic, but it’s interesting to confirm.
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### Author:  [@UncleFred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleFred)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/11 "2012-12-01T00:35:00Z")
People always have striven for ‘wealth’ and ‘symbols of power’ and later on as a medium of exchange. Gold is elected largely because it is the best candidate - for many of the reasons listed above; mostly useless for anything else, but pretty, maleable, and long-lasting.
If we didn’t have gold it would have been something else, like silver.
An excellent book on the history of gold is Peter Berenstein’s “The Power Of Gold - The History of an Obsession”
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### Author:  [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/12 "2012-12-01T00:40:25Z")
> [@Chimera](#):
>
> Extremely dense and heavy.
Well, it’s always dense, but it can weigh as little or as much as you wish.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/13 "2012-12-01T00:51:42Z")
Originally, before people learned how to smelt other metals, gold and silver were, to all intents, the only metals known to mankind, because thanks to their chemistry, they occur in the ground in metallic form. They were still extremely rare, however. Thus only the very wealthy and powerful - major tribal chiefs etc. - could “afford” things made from them. (I put “afford” in quotes, because we are talking of a time before money, but there were already wide variations in power and possessions.) Gold and silver objects, particularly useless, merely decorative ones, thus became symbols of wealth and power. They have remained so ever since. The wealthy and the aspiring wealthy want to have them (to impress the proles), and, as the metals are still relatively scarce, they are expensive.
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### Author:  [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/14 "2012-12-01T01:00:09Z")
It is also one of the only mettalic elements (I think the only), besides copper, that is colored. Silver, palladium, platinum, tin, etc all kind of look alike.
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### Author:  [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/15 "2012-12-01T01:20:44Z")
> [@Moriarty](#):
>
> So, we’re really just a simple-minded species, in pursuit of the prettiest thing we can adorn ourselves with? It puts the vast human history of frequent war and contest in a peculiar light.
> ETA: with electronics and the corrosion thing, I get the value aspect. But most conflict in pursuit of gold predates electronic technology.
Lusting for something with high intrinsic value (post # 2) does not make you simple-minded. Over-zealousness (whether with race, or religion, or what-have-you) ranks higher in the hierarchy of stupidity.
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### Author:  [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/16 "2012-12-01T02:11:21Z")
Cesium looks like gold. It’s not too useful as a metal, however, since it explodes when it mixes with water.
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### Author:  [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/17 "2012-12-01T04:30:08Z")
Supply & demand. Remember that a little over a hundred years ago \*\*Aluminum \*\*was so difficult & expensive to extract into its pure form (it requires huge amounts of electricity) that it was considered a precious metal more valuable than Silver. The very top, pointy part of The Washington Monument is a block of Aluminum for this reason. Once electricity became available on an industrial scale the price plummeted. And even though as a metal Aluminum is far, far more useful than Gold, because bauxite (Aluminum ore) is much more plentiful it’s far less expensive.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/18 "2012-12-01T04:44:45Z")
We’ve discussed this topic before:
> **[Why is gold so valuable? (Moved from CCC)](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=592359)**
>
> Hello! This is my first time writting on this board. I love Cecil’s columns, I read them online every day… I sometimes even check many times in a day for a new one! I have one question though. It’s maybe stupid because it seems obvious, but I can’t...
Especially note Lemur866’s discussion of “key goods” in post #21.
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### Author:  [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/19 "2012-12-01T05:43:34Z")
If you think about it, gold is the perfect candidate for making currency out of, in an ancient and relatively unsophisticated economy.
It wasn’t particularly useful until recently, so nobody would destroy it in order to make something useful from it (like a weapon).
It lasts forever and doesn’t corrode, so the supply stays pretty constant and it’s possible to save and store it.
It’s malleable, so you can stamp it with your dictator’s face and make it any size/thickness that you want to represent different values.
It’s rare, so people can’t really “print” their own money.
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### Author:  [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2012, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-gold-so-valuable/642623/20 "2012-12-01T06:27:33Z")
The value of anything comes down to three factors:
1. utility
2. esthetics
3. scarcity
Gold wins on all three counts. Plus, as mentioned above, it’s inert, so works well as currency in addition to its other attributes.
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