Yellow Metal

Gold is always Gold since from the ancient days. This yellow metal rules the entire world. Why it is attractive?... It is scarce, It cannot be fabricated or produced in large quantities, And it is durable, homogenous and divisible, It is widely acceptable as money. These characteristics gives that much of importance to the Gold. Printed money can’t meet these criteria which increases the attractiveness of Gold.

It has always been used as a medium of exchange for goods since ancient times and has not suffered devaluation in the same ways as paper currency. Gold has a record long history as a commodity and as a store of value. It has been formally a monetary media in and around the world. Gold has faced complete official demonetization long back, yet it experiences continued and renewed interest as a private or unofficial monetary medium. Even governments around the world are making greater use of gold in international financial affairs. Over time, gold has undergone three major transitions: Gold was a medium of exchange in the early civilization. Next, an international banking system was developed around it, in which paper money was fully convertible into gold.This convertibility was ceased in 1971 by the then president Richard Nixon and a purely fiat money system took its place. Early civilizations equated gold with gods and rulers. Humans almost intuitively place a high value on gold, equating it with power, beauty and cultural elite. And since gold is widely distributed all over the globe, we find this same thinking about gold throughout ancient and modern civilizations everywhere. And because of this very basic reason, gold is hovering around $1700 per ounce, even when the US departed the gold exchange standard long back. As per the statistics, today 61% of gold demand is for jewellery purposes as compared to only 27% for investment. And this affinity towards gold is attributed to our roots.

Most other pure metals are gray or silvery white, gold is yellow. This color is determined by the density of loosely bound (valence) electrons; those electrons oscillate as a collective "plasma" medium described in terms of a quasiparticle called plasmon. The frequency of these oscillations lies in the ultraviolet range for most metals, but it falls into the visible range for gold due to subtle relativistic effects that affect the orbitals around gold atoms. Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal with a bright yellow color and luster that is considered attractive, which is maintained without tarnishing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements, solid under standard conditions. The metal therefore occurs often in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, usually with tellurium. Gold resists attacks by individual acids, but it can be dissolved.The gold content of alloys is measured in carats (k). Pure gold is designated as 24k. English gold coins intended for circulation from 1526 into the 1930s were typically a standard 22k alloy called crown gold, for hardness (American gold coins for circulation after 1837 contained the slightly lower amount of 0.900 fine gold, or 21.6 kt).

Use in Medicine

Conceived of as perhaps the most anciently administered medicine (apparently according to one source by shamanic practitioners) and known of by Dioscorides, apparent paradoxes of the actual toxicology of the substance nevertheless suggests the possibility still of serious gaps in understanding of action on physiology.

In medieval times, gold was often seen as beneficial for the health, in the belief that something so rare and beautiful could not be anything but healthy. However, only salts and radioisotopes of gold are of pharmacological value, as elemental (metallic) gold is inert to all chemicals it encounters inside the body.

Food and drink

Gold can be used in food and has the E number 175. Gold leaf, flake or dust is used on and in some gourmet foods, notably sweets and drinks as decorative ingredient. Gold flake was used by the nobility in medieval Europe as a decoration in food and drinks, in the form of leaf, flakes or dust, either to demonstrate the host's wealth or in the belief that something that valuable and rare must be beneficial for one's health.

Danziger Goldwasser (German: Gold water of Danzig) or Goldwasser (English: Goldwater) is a traditional German herbal liqueur produced in what is today Gdańsk, Poland, and Schwabach, Germany, and contains flakes of gold leaf. There are also some expensive (~$1000) cocktails which contain flakes of gold leaf. However, since metallic gold is inert to all body chemistry, it has no taste, it provides no nutrition, and it leaves the body unaltered.This metal has been a valuable and highly sought-after precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since long before the beginning of recorded history.

A total of 174,100 tonnes of gold have been mined in human history, according to GFMS as of 2012.

Besides its widespread monetary and symbolic functions, gold has many practical uses in dentistry, electronics, and other fields. Its high malleability, ductility, resistance to corrosion and most other chemical reactions, and conductivity of electricity has led to many uses, including electric wiring, colored-glass production, and gold leafing. Its history can be traced back to 6000 BC. The other seven metals including Gold, known as the Metals of Antiquity, were the metals upon which civilisation was based. These seven metals were:(1) Gold-6000 BC (2) Copper- 4200 BC (3) Silver- 4000 BC (4) Lead-3500 BC (5) Tin-1750 BC (6) Iron,smelted-1500 BC (7) Mercury- 750 BC.These metals were known to the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks and the Romans. Of the seven metals, five can be found in their native states, e.g., gold, silver, copper, iron (from meteors) and mercury. However, the occurrence of these metals was not abundant and the first two metals to be used widely were gold and copper. And, of course, the history of metals is closely linked to that of coins and gemstones.

The purchase of gold, the most frequently heard today is "Look what governments are doing, look at the record of gold, and buy gold as a safe means of beating inflation." This precious metal is bought and sold in U.S. dollars. So when dollar and other currencies experience devaluation, the value of gold rises. Between the end of 1973(at which time the price of gold had been freed in both private and official markets) and 2009, the price of gold increased from USD 106.72/oz to USD 1087.50/oz, a rise of 928%. Adjusting for the cumulative rise in US Consumer price inflation, gold rose by 119%, which equates to annualized real return of 2.2%.

World's largest gold mines

Grasberg Mine (Indonesia), Cortez (U.S.A.),Yanacocha (Peru), Goldstrike (U.S.A.), Veladero (Argentina), Vaal River (South Africa), The Super Pit ( Kalgoorlie-Boulder, WA, Australia), West Wits (South Africa), Lagunas Norte (Peru), Boddington mine (Boddington, WA, Australia). Run by Newmont, the Boddington gold mine is actually one of Australia's newest gold mines, beginning production in 2009.  At the end of 2010 it had reserves of 20 million ounces of gold and 2.4 billion pounds of copper.  It produced 741,000 ounces of gold in 2011.

Gold-mining countries

Gold is mined in around 90 countries worldwide. Some of the countries that historically have been top producers continue to be so, including Australia, Canada, the USA and South Africa. But China is now the world’s top producer, having increased productivity significantly since 2005. In 2011, Kazakhstan entered the top 20 of gold-mining countries for the first time.

Consumption       

India is the world's largest single consumer of gold, as Indians buy about 25% of the world's gold, purchasing approximately 800 tonnes of gold every year, mostly for jewelry. India is also the largest importer of gold; in 2008, India imported around 400 tonnes of gold. Indian households hold 18,000 tonnes of gold which represents 11% of the global stock and worth more than $950 billion.