A Brief History of Gold

Gold is known since antiquity, being one of the first metal worked by man. Known in Sumer, Egypt , there are Egyptian hieroglyphs 2600 BC that describe the metal, which is referred to in several passages in the Old Testament.

He is considered one of the most precious metals, and its value was used as the standard for many currencies throughout history.

The currency or money as we know, has gone through several transformations, according to the following order:

     Barter (exchange primitive, especially the exploitation of nature, such as wheat for example).
     Goods money (rare commodities like salt of Ancient Rome and the money of bamboo in China).
     Metalism (precious metals, such as copper, bronze, iron, silver and gold).
     Paper currency (certificates of deposit backed by precious metals).
     Paper-Currency (certificates of deposit without integral metal ballast).
     Scriptural currency (cashless corresponding debit and credit or invisible with no physical existence, such as bank deposits).

Each transformation was necessary to avoid the above problems of the prior replacement.

The metalism, for example, had a very good acceptance, since the precious metals have a shorter supply than cattle, for example.

Gold is rare, durable, divisible and homogeneous. For a time, these factors did as number one choice for instrument exchange, common name of values ​​and reserve values​​.

After centuries serving as the main form of exchange, gold was gradually replaced by paper money and paper money due to their difficulty of handling, transportation and custody.

The ease of making payments through the current paper currency (paper money), credit card and other transactions without the use of a paper currency is a factor that hardly anyone will give up.

However, free money printing by central banks (with almost no backing in gold) has direct consequences such as inflation and rising public debt.

So many people looking to invest in gold to protect against this lack of ballasting, which appears clearly in the financial crisis.