Investing In Gold

Gold As An Investment
How to Invest Successfully in Gold
What you've always wanted to know about gold

Gold is a precious metal found underground around the world. Gold is considered by many as a store of value and a safe haven for wealth in economic crisis. One of gold's important properties is psychological, because it is so closely associated with money. This gives it an immeasurable advantage over other tangible stores of wealth. Most people readily associate gold's distinctive color with wealth, and consider the color of gold beautiful. King Midas of mythology, who could turn everything he touched into gold, had the first fatal case of “gold fever,” the frantic need to seek and hoard gold.

Gold was among the first metals to be mined because it commonly occurs in its native form, not combined with other elements, and because it is beautiful and imperishable, and because exquisite objects can b

e made from it.

Gold is Scarce

Gold is extremely rare. Underground gold veins or 'lodes' are produced in association with various minerals. As the other minerals are leached away over a long period, the gold becomes concentrated. Because the process of extracting gold from ore is costly, and requires the manipulation of large quantities of ore for a small yield of gold, the gold ore discovery must be concentrated in the ground about 1,000 times more than usual before it can be mined profitably. Ore of sufficient yield is very rare. Half of all the un-mined gold is in South Africa.

Above ground, gold is rare, too. All the gold that has ever been mined would hardly fill a cube with the length, width and height of a tennis court. The total gold production of all time totals about 140,000 tons.