Introduction

Since antiquity, gold has been valued for its scarcity, beauty, and resistance to corrosion. Gold is the best known of all native elements and the most likely to be found in a metallic state (Pough 1991). It is the universal standard of value and the common medium of exchange in world commerce (Koschmann and Bergendahl 1968). Gold is almost everywhere considered to be the symbol of everything precious and of enduring value because of the effort required to extract it from nature, and because of its scarcity relative to other metals (Petralia 1996; Merchant 1998). Gold was known and highly valued by the earliest civilizations: Egyptian, Minoan, Assyrian, and Etruscan. Ornaments of great beauty and workmanship have survived from these periods, many of them as perfect as when they were first made, several thousands of years ago (Rose 1948). The earliest mining work of which traces remain was on gold ores in Egypt; gold washing is depicted on Egyptian monuments of the fourth dynasty, about 2000 BCE. The legend of the Golden Fleece may actually describe an expedition around 1200 BCE to seize gold washed out from the river sands by Armenians using sheepskins (Rose 1948). Financial investors regard gold as an excellent hedge against inflation (Greer 1993). In recent years, the net buyers of gold were central banks and government monetary agencies. In Asia, investment demand for gold has risen sharply. In 1988, about 75% of new gold output went to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore as a store of wealth and as adornment (Greer 1993).