Gold has been very much in the news lately, taking me back to my time in the jewelry and antique trade to the world of penny weights and troy ounces, tiny delicate scales and acid testing, to the care, feeding and appreciation of that wonderful metal, gold.
This was recently further brought to mind by the British Antique Roadshow on PBS where a farmer had found in his garden, a bright yellow braided ring looking like something out of a Christmas cracker which turned out to be an early Anglo Saxon ring of pure gold, over 2,000 years old and still in perfect condition, not tarnished or corroded.
Oh for the wonders of gold. Easily carried and negotiable, used for wages, bribes and dowries especially in India and the Middle East where the fortunate bride receives large amounts of fine gold jewelry for her dowry as a safeguard for her future should she lose her husband or fall on hard times.
Gold's mystical qualities have attracted human beings since the dawn of history. The Egyptians of the Old World and the Aztecs of the New, peoples far removed from each other by culture and geography, saw the sun-colored metal as an object of religious adoration, used it to adorn the tombs of kings and to speed the passage of their rulers into heaven. Modern man takes a more pragmatic view of gold. He sees it as a storehouse of value-concealable from thieves and process servers, portable, tradable, one key to an elusive security.
Gold is far more than a mere commodity or even a monetary metal. It is a barometer of anxiety. When the world seems dangerous and the future unpredictable, men still reach for gold to preserve their wealth, their power and mobility and a measure of security for their heirs. Gold is again in the headlines and evening new.
The barometer of anxiety has risen in the world, and gold's monetary value has reached historic highs. Over $1,000 an ounce a few months ago and the price to date over $850 an ounce. This is of course for 24 karat, which is 100 percent pure gold.
The gold used in the United States today is 14 and 18 karat. It's interesting to note that the word karat derives from the Italia "carato" the Arabic "qirat" and the Greek "keration" all of which mean the fruit of the carob tree. The seeds were used to balance the scales while weighing gold and gems in oriental bazaars.
Nothing could be simpler than gold. Its beauty is direct, its value unquestioned, its attraction natural. In economics, gold is a simple standard supporting all currencies. In chemistry, gold is an element-one of the simple purities composing all of the more complicated materials of the physical world.
In history, many of man's most intricate strategies, complex desires, and cunning hopes have ultimately spun into a simple human feeling; the appreciation of gold. Gold, for all its simplicity, has become a wondrously complicated substance in the splendors of its usage.
Human intelligence has turned its ageless fascination with gold into a technology of exploitation. In the past few years, scientists and engineers have joined economists and jewelers in the determined quest to see that gold is pushed to its full potential in every field. All of its perfections will be discovered. And each discovery, in each field increases the value of the gold you own.
The history of gold is the history of civilization. Every culture that has found gold has appreciated it, and has sought more of it. Gold is celestial in origin. Eons ago, when the masses of the universe were forming from cosmic gasses, the weighty elements solidified, condensed into hard elements such as lead, platinum, silver, and gold, and fell into the formation of the planets closest to the sun-Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Prehistoric men discovered gold nuggets in alluvial deposits after floods on the banks of rivers or ponds.
Gold proved useless for tools intended for rugged work; a hammer made of gold would not chip a hard rock, but would simply leave a sparkling smear across it. However, when the process was reversed and stone tools were applied to gold, man became craftsman.
Gold was probably the first material to be successfully manipulated by creative men and women. Bits of gold-including artful smears on cave paintings-have been found in caves in Spain dating back to 40,000 B.C.
Looking for gold in the distant realms of the world was costly and dangerous. Looking for gold in the flasks of wizards and alchemists was cheaper, if ultimately less enriching. Many branches of experimental science were started when an eager king bade his man of knowledge to make gold from baser materials.
If any of the alchemists ever succeeded in such a transformation, we do not know of it today. We do know that some of the chemists were trusted with samples of gold for analysis, and that they found new uses for the noble metal in their meanderings.
Gold dust in honey was a Roman ointment for battle wounds suffered by great military leaders. Gold tablets were prescribed by Vedic physicians in India to provide energy and fight infection.
The Spanish explorers who discovered the Inca, Maya, Aztec, and Carib civilizations of Central and South America in the 16th century must have thought they had found an entire nation of successful alchemists; there was so much gold in every corner of the cities that magic must have seemed a more likely cause than mining.
Temples built of gold, furniture built of gold, life-size statues built of gold...there was even gold mortar between the stones in Inca domiciles. The Spaniards looked beyond the dazzling splendors at hand, and set off on ravaging quests for El Dorado-the man of gold, who was a mythic provider. There actually was a man behind the myth; the king of Cudinamarca on the Colombian plateaus coated himself with gold dust once per year and performed golden sacrifices in tribute to the spirit of Lake Guatavita.
The great gold prospecting movements of the 19th century started in Siberia and spread to Australia and North America, infecting men and women of all races with gold fever, and making gold fields the scenes of mass jubilation and mass suspicion.
The Gold Rush in the United States started with the discovery of gold in Georgia in 1828. The California rush began 20 years later, when Winston Marshall found the first big yellow nugget in the western territory, and continued for nine years at great feverish productivity.
In nine years the California rush produced 829 tons of gold-nearly as much as had been produced in Spain, the Roman Empire's largest gold source, in five centuries. Gold rushes and their connections literally put cities, including Seattle, on the map.
In the 19th century in Britain and the U.S., many a patriotic lady sacrificed her precious wedding ring and gold trinkets to the war effort of the time. So if you have some scrap gold, by that I mean broken bits and pieces, by all means keep gold watches and jewelry to pass on to your family, I can recommend a very good local source that will help you dispose of it at a fair market price.
Interestingly enough, it's the parent company of that magical store, Pacific Fabrics that is so helpful with all our various costume needs. The parent company is Pacific Iron and Metal located on Fourth Avenue South that has been dealing scrap and precious metals for many years.
I hope you have gleaned a few golden nuggets of fact and fancy from the above column. Here's to a golden future.
TTFN until next time.
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