A report on the BBC website cites GFMS, Warren Buffett and James Turk as sources for the speculative fact that if you gathered all the mined gold in the world together it would fit into a cube roughly 20 metres by 20 by 20. Or, to put it another way, if it was all laid out on the centre court at Wimbledon it would stand less than 10 metres above the ground.
There is some debate as to the accuracy of such guesstimates, but the implication is pretty plain. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Barricks, Anglos and Newmonts of this world, there's still not that much gold about.
That scarcity is what makes it such a good proxy store of value. Yes, the gold miners of the world have been conducting their own form of quantitative easing for gold for thousands of years - by bringing more of it out of the rock, and into our jewellery stores and safety deposit boxes.
But compared to the efforts of the central bankers, these efforts are paltry. In the US, the creation of a trillion dollar coin was recently mooted by serious economists. Fiat currencies can conjure up so-called value out of thin air. Alright, a trillion dollar coin takes up far less space than the centre court at Wimbledon.
But ask yourself this. In thousands of years time, which will the archaeologists of the future find more valuable – a tennis court full of gold, or a coin with a notional value on it? The coin will give an insight into the hubris at large in the early 21st century, but it'll be the gold that gets the armed guards and expensive alarm systems.
This week on Minesite we'll be featuring several gold companies, all with a bright future, including Caledonia, Aureus, Stratex and Amara. In two thousand years' time, their product will still be with us. And there are not many companies in the world you can say that about.
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