ABSTRACT
Gold bullion is sold to price-sensitive jewellers, industrial users and metal traders. Jewellers and other industrial and commercial users fabricate or transform the gold in bar form to semi-manufactured or final products for industrial or commercial use. The uses of gold are assessed at the initial point of bullion fabrication. Table 5.1 summarises the use of gold for those purposes and it is clear that there is considerable year to year variation in the absolute level and the distribution of that use. Except for 1974 when gold usage for official coins was the major use, the manufacture of carat gold jewellery has been the major use of gold, in most years accounting for some two thirds of total product fabrication. Gold use in electronics increased sharply between 1968 and 1973 but by 1978 was back to virtually its 1968 level. Dentistry uses of gold increased by almost a third in the decade from 1968 to 1978. Medals, medallions and fake coins which had absorbed a consistent 40 to 50 tons for the first five years of the period sharply reduced their gold usage when the price rose in 1973 and it was not until 1976 that the earlier level of usage was regained. Official coins became the second major use by the end of the period and with 230 legal tender gold coinages issues by 80 countries in 1979 that level of use seems likely to continue. US Jewellery Industry – Type of Gold Used (metric tons) https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
1975
1976
1978
Carat gold
53.9
66.9
83.4
Fine gold for plating
0.9
0.8
1.6
Gold filled and other
9.4
11.6
14.2
Source: Consolidated Goldfields.