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Message:: [QUOTE="Blaubart, post: 2373989, member: 37498"]Actually, yes true. Here's why.  When gold started to be used as money, it became an "item of wealth".  That's not to say it was universally so, across all cultures, nor did it have to be. Here's an example: If an indigenous person took a thousand ounces of gold to Europe, would he be a wealthy person?  Even if his family back home didn't recognize the potential of gold as a store of wealth? If we're talking about thousands of years ago, then it wouldn't have been conceivable for a person to travel outside of the Americas, in which case those people could not have realized the value of their gold, but that doesn't mean their gold wasn't an "item of wealth" to someone.  It's just that it wasn't "in play", so to say. Yet another example.  Would you say that a 1913 Liberty Head V Nickel is "an item of wealth"?  Even if not everyone in the world values it the same?  Even if not everyone in the world even recognizes that it could be worth more than $0.05? The value of gold is similar to the value of any other commodity.  It doesn't matter if EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE values said commodity in exactly the same way, as long as there are a sufficient number of people that do such that you can realize the stored wealth. Yes, it's a long rant, but it's one of my peeves when people assume something has to be of identical value to EVERYONE to be of any value at all to anyone.[/QUOTE]