The History of Gold

By Jack Wogan


4000 B.C. A culture, centred in what is today Eastern Europe, began to use gold to fashion decorative objects. The bullion was probably mined in the Transylvanian Alps or the Mount Pangaion area in Thrace.

1500 B.C. The immense gold-bearing regions of Nubia made Egypt a wealthy nation, as bullion became a recognised standard medium of exchange for international trade.

1091 B.C. Little squares of gold were legalised in China as a form of money.

560 B.C. The first coins made purely from gold were minted in Lydia, a kingdom of Asia Minor.

50 B.C. Romans began issuing a gold coin called the Aureus.

476 A.D. The Goths deposed Emperor Romulas Augustus, marking the fall of the Roman Empire.

1299 A.D. Marco Polo wrote of his travels to the Far East, where the "gold wealth was almost unlimited".

1284 A.D. Venice introduced the gold Ducat, which soon became the most popular coin in the world and remained so for more than five centuries.

1284 A.D. Great Britain issued its first major bullion coin, the Florin. This was followed shortly by the Noble, Angel, Crown, and Guinea.

1377 A.D. Great Britain shifted to a monetary system, based on gold and silver.

1700 A.D. Gold was discovered in Brazil, which became the largest producer of it by 1720, contributing to nearly two thirds of the world output. Isaac Newton, as Master of the Mint, fixed the price of bullion in Great Britain at 84 shillings, 11 ½ pence per troy ounce. The Royal commission, composed of Newton, John Locke, and Lord Somers, recommended a recall of all old currency, issuance of a new species with gold/silver ratio of sixteen-to-one. The bullion price thus established in Great Britain lasted for over 200 years.

1787 A.D. The first U.S. gold-coin was struck by Ephraim Brasher, a goldsmith.

1792 A.D. The Coinage Act placed the United States on a bimetallic silver-gold standard, and defined the U.S. dollar as equivalent to 24.75 grains of fine gold-bars along with 371.25 grains of fine silver.

1816 A.D. Great Britain officially tied the pound to a specific quantity of gold at which British currency was convertible.

1817 A.D. Britain introduced the Sovereign, a small gold-coin valued at one pound sterling.

1868 A.D. George Harrison, while digging up stones to build a house, discovered gold in South Africa - since then this continent became the source of nearly forty percent of all bullion ever mined.

1887 A.D. A British patent was issued to John Steward MacArthur for the cyanidation process for recovering gold from ore. The process resulted in a doubling of world gold output over the next twenty years.

1925 A.D. Great Britain returned to a gold-bullion standard with currency redeemable for 400-ounce gold-bullion bars, but there was no circulation of gold-coins.

1931 A.D. Great Britain abandoned the gold-bullion standard.

1954 A.D. London gold-market, closed early in World War II, re-opened.

1961 A.D. Americans were forbidden to own gold abroad as well as at home. The central banks of Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, West Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States formed the London Gold Pool and agreed to buy/sell at $35.0875 per ounce.

1987 A.D. British Royal Mint introduced the Britannia Gold-Bullion Coin. The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) was also formally incorporated. 2005 A.D. The LBMA annual Precious Metals Conference became the premier professional forum for the world bullion market.

Learn how to buy gold in the times of recession for investment.

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