Relatively rare compared to other metals. 818tonnes by my calcs so 2,454t pa. Don't worry, the Chinese and Indians are taking care of it all James Turk believes 155,000t is all the gold that has ever been mined. Others say 2.5m tonnes. Fact of the Day: Tutankhamen's coffin alone contained 1.5t of gold!
wow. if they melted the coffin down they could get 49000 1oz coins out of it. stamp a cool king tuts tomb design on it, market the gold as a piece of his coffin. i could see them sell every oz for 10k+ each = $490,000,000 i should write the Egyptian Museum a letter. ...actually i could see one billionare just pay that to have that thing is his living room. say.... 30k+ a coin?
For the Ancient Egyptians, the idea of preserving the remains of the departed, especially an important figure like a Pharaoh, was to grant them a form of quasi-immortality. Hence why mummification was so widespread in Ancient Egypt. Gold and stone were probably the only two materials available to the Egyptians that doesn't break down, deteriorate, rust or corrode. Their beliefs would mark it as 'incorruptable' or 'eternal'. Hence why they'd choose a make a Sarcophagus out of gold. I'd still wager the Thebian goldsmith who worked on it from circa 2000 BC probably thought: "This is the most pimpin' tricked-out Sarcophagus EVER."
I would definitely not wish to have any artifact of a Pharaoh's tomb in my house - have you never heard of the deadly curse ?
Oh, for the love of... The way gold is melted down recycled through the centuries, for all you know, a few atoms of the gold in your wedding band was sourced from melted-down burial ornaments from an ancient Pharoah's tomb...or King Louis XVI's crown, right after they put him under the guillotine...or ransom payment offered by an Inca emissary to the Spanish Conquistadors...or dental gold found in the 'trash disposal' incinerators from Auschwitz...or from the clutched palm of some 8-year kid who died working an mom-and-pop artisan mine in Mongolia or the Philippines. I'll take any of the above gold without hesitation. In the beginning/end, all gold is sourced from supernovae; every other attribute is just an artifact of your imagination.
Mine production (tonnes) 1997 2527 1998 2574 1999 2602 2000 2618 2001 2645 2002 2618 2003 2621 2004 2493 2005 2548 2006 2486 2007 2476 2008 2409 2009 2584 2010 2659 2011 2839 2012 2864.1 2013 3018.6 So 4 months, at 2013 mining rate, is about 24 Moz. Recycling (tonnes) 1997 631 1998 1108 1999 620 2000 619 2001 749 2002 872 2003 985 2004 878 2005 897 2006 1126 2007 956 2008 1217 2009 1672 2010 1653 2011 1611.9 2012 1590.8 2013 1371.4 ... is also production.
And existing stocks, is production that.... returns: ETFs and similar products 1997 0 1998 0 1999 0 2000 0 2001 0 2002 3 2003 39 2004 133 2005 208 2006 260 2007 253 2008 321 2009 617 2010 367.7 2011 154.0 2012 279.1 2013 -880.8 Last year 880.8 tonnes returned. Twice as much still pending. Didn't speak yet 'bout coins and non ETF/similar bars. And about government stocks neither.
26M oz equates to 0.1grams per person on the planet. Or about $5 each. I think I could find that in the couch.
...if they want it... if they don't find other things they like more and/or are cheaper. People tend to chose what is cheaper, whose price lags other prices. And as the data proves: everytime people chose gold, central banks and other money for nothing clubbers quickly help driving up the price faster and when those that chose gold anyway then chose to sell their gold to buy what they really wanted, central banks and other money for nothing clubbers quickly help driving down the price faster. Their 'power' to do so being determined by the size of their stockpile. The current total gold 'round equals 0.8 gram per person on Earth. Kids, elders, movie stars; gypsies and poorfellas included. Most of it sits probably in the few hands of a 'rich' class that does not take part in production / economy. In 2013, 880.8 tonnes were sold mainly by some quartet of big ETF shareholders. Look at the figures, with 617 tonnes 2009 was their biggest 'load up' year, and they probably bought in earlier years too. 2009's average gold price was USD $972.35, and they probably sold april-may 2013 at an average of around $1500-$1600. That's about $600 per ounce that shifted from others to their pockets instead of to more ounces gold. That's a byebye and a welcome of about 17 billion dollars. It's now certainly a better moment to buy gold. But seen over more years, those ETF's still have 2/3 left, or a further 34 billion dollars, if they can get enough people stupid enough to buy the price again to $1600. And their buddies in this, governments central banks, didn't even return to net selling yet, and these central banks added 1385.7 tonnes since their year 2011's shift from net selling > net buying. Together, that's 3145.7 tonnes gold sitting in hands of people that bought it to grab in other peoples pockets. With those big fund holders buying low selling high and central banks, since they can just create the cheapskate money needed to do so, selling low buying high. It's easy to realize that they find eachother, and that they are two hands on the same stomach, happily working together to empty your, as a gold stacker / speculator, pockets. They pretend/seem to stabilize the gold price, make it less volatile, but in reality, they do so in a very selective way. Actually, they just control the gold price. They give you a false feeling of more stability/trust than silver because they have big stocks of the former and not of the latter. And that has also a reason: longterm accumulated big stocks keep the price long up (this is why the price ratio is much higher than the stockpile ratio), and that means every use of silver also stay longterm more expensive.
