How we know the price of gold is artificially inflated

[barbarienne]

It's now more expensive than platinum. (And has been for a year or so

Comments

[chaosvizier]

Dammit, you'd think that 30 years of DND would have had a better influence on the platinum-to-gold market value ratio. Everyone knows that 1 pp = 5 gp. EVERYONE.

Also, fuck electrum. Just because.

[barbarienne]

Can one even buy electrum? According to Wikipedia (and all the caveats that entails) it seems to have been in wide use in the ancient world, but outside of D&D manuals, you don't hear about it anywhere.

[julesjones]

I was looking at the 20 year figures for the price of gold and silver last night as some research for the WIP, and basically went "WTF happened in 2009?" I knew gold had gone silly, I hadn't realised that silver had gone with it.

Having regularly used an example of the more obscure industrial uses of gold in a past career, I can't help wondering what effect this is having on the people who actually use gold as an industrial metal.

[barbarienne]

I have to wonder if this is driving innovation in dentistry. I mean, gold fillings were kind of tacky imo, but they existed because gold is so non-reactive. Now there's extra incentive to have polymers and ceramics and such.

The price of silver was about $4/toz when I started diddling around with jewelry making in the late 90s. I'm so frigging annoyed at the price now. The real evidence of cost issues shows in that the supply houses are offering a lot more options in base metals (copper, nickel, brass) these days.

There's a reason I do filigree. You can cover larger areas with mostly air.