What Determines Gold Price?
Why is Gold so expensive? Why can’t we just dig up some more?
The value of gold will depend on its purity and its weight.
Purity is expressed in a couple of ways. In Jewellery it is stated in Carats (spelt Karats in North America) often abbreviated as ‘ct’, 24 carat being pure gold. Weight is usually given in grammes (g). The actual price per gram varies by the minute.
Base metal (usually copper) is added to the gold to make the metal harder, alter its colour or just to make it more affordable. 18 carat is 75% gold, 9 carat is 37.5% gold.
Gold Bullion, which is gold bought for pure investment purposes (such as gold bars and ingots) is usually rated zero to one, so pure gold is classified as above 0.999 (99.9% gold), 9 carat referred to as .375. Gold is often certified and may carry assay marks or Hallmarks.
Why not just dig some more?
Gold has long been a popular choice as an investment. Yet as a metal, gold is too soft for many applications; it is the most malleable metal known. Gold is a good electrical conductor; copper and silver are better and much cheaper, although gold is less prone to corrosion. Yet none of gold’s physical properties justify it’s extremely high cost.
What actually makes it so expensive and desirable?
It’s all to do with rarity. Gold is extremely rare. The total amount of gold mined in the entire history of mankind is less than 170,000 tonnes, about enough to only fill 3 Olympic sized swimming pools. Compare this to the mining of Iron (which is almost 850 million tonnes per year) and aluminium production (just over 30 million tonnes per year) then you can see gold is very scarce.
So gold is a rare, precious, much sought after commodity, as such it commands a high price. 50% of gold is used for jewellery, 40% in bullion (as coins and bars), the rest a variety of industrial and medical applications.
Centuries of Alchemists will vouch for the fact that gold cannot be created from base metal. Gold is a chemical element, atomic number 79 and has the symbol Au (after the Latin name aurum, which means ‘gold’). With the exception of the noble gases, gold is the least reactive element known.
And it’s not that people don’t try to mine more, or that they just look in the wrong place. It’s simply that there’s not a lot of gold on the planet, period. And it’s not exactly in abundance in the entire galaxy.
So where does gold come from? Gold is made when a star collapses and forms a supernova. This is such an exceptional event that in a Galaxy of 100 billion stars, the conditions for making gold only exist for less than one minute every century. So if you have some gold, it has come from a distant star that exploded many billions of years ago. It’s on this planet because that’s where the Earth was spit out from too.
To make matters worse, 99% of all the gold is trapped in the Earth’s core. If we could get all of this gold we could cover the entire Earth with a nice shiny coating about half a metre thick. But this is not going to happen and we get the odd piece of gold thrown out by volcanic action. Many times geologists find gold but it would cost more than it was worth to excavate and separate it from other elements. Even when the layers were richer and more accessible as in the Roman days, miners would need to dig several tons of material just to get one ounce of gold.
Here’s some Gold Items on eBay UK:
eBay USA
On eBay UK: | 1966 22ct Full Gold Sovereign Coin £510 £ 510.00 |
 | 1964 22ct Full Gold Sovereign Coin £510 £ 510.00 |
 | 1974 22ct Full Gold Sovereign Coin £510 £ 510.00 |
 | 1958 22ct Full Gold Sovereign Coin £510 £ 510.00 |
 | 1902 Edward 22 Carat Gold Half Sovereign £ 350.00 |
 | The New 2021 Gold Proof Sovereign £ 900.00 |
 | Gold Sovereign Best Value Gold Coin £ 555.62 |
 | Royal Mint UK GOLD PROOF SOVEREIGN 1979 to 2025 - Choose your year £ 610.00 |
 | Gold Sovereign Deluxe Black Storage Cases Choose Design FULL HALF Sovereign £ 15.49 |
 | 1891 Victoria Jubilee Head Shield Back Gold Half Sovereign Coin £ 290.00 |
 | 2022 Gold Memorial 1/4 Sovereign NGC PF70 Top Pop! Proof Quarter Sovereign £ 215.00 |
 | 2013 Gold Quarter Sovereign in BU finish £ 155.00 |
 | 2000 Elizabeth II MILLENNIUM HALF SOVEREIGN COIN 22ct Gold £ 270.00 |
 | 9ct Half Sovereign £ 295.00 |
 | Bullion Gold Half Sovereign Best Value £ 283.19 |
 | Half Victoria 22ct gold Sovereign and 9ct Gold pendant and Chain £ 410.00 |
 | 2017 200th Anniversary Full Sovereign Gold Proof Coin - Boxed with CoA £ 745.00 |
 | 2022 Gold Memorial 1/4 Sovereign NGC PF70 Top Pop! Proof Quarter Sovereign £ 215.00 |
 | 1887 Queen Victoria Sovereign, 22c Gold Plated, Original Size, 8g... £ 4.95 |
 | 22 carat Gold Full Sovereign Ring £ 870.00 |
 | 1872 Gold Shield Back Sovereign £ 750.00 |
 | Last Ones🎅🏽2025🎄2025 Gold half Sovereign UK 🇬🇧 🫳🏽Buy Now for Xmas £ 259.15 |
 | 1 x2022 quarter sovereign memorial gold coin sealed £ 160.00 |
 | 2021 22ct Gold Half Sovereign still sealed in Royal Mint blister card. £ 275.00 |
 | 2019 India Full Gold Sovereign Boxed in Blister Pack £ 726.00 |
 | Deluxe red velvet padded sovereign case for 10 full gold sovereign £ 9.99 |
 | 2023 King Charles III Coronation 3 Coin Sovereign Set Limited Edition 1250 RARE £ 1,199.99 |
 | 1862 Gold Victoria Full Sovereign - Shield-back £ 585.00 |
 | A 9CT GOLD SOVEREIGN CASE Fully HALLMARKED £ 740.00 |
 | Half Sovereign 1912 King George V 22ct Gold £ 300.00 |
 | 2025 🎅🏽 2025 🌲 Gold Half Sovereign unopened in blister. Cheapest in UK ! £ 258.15 |
 | 1967 Gillick Full Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II - 22ct Gold Coin £ 550.00 |
 | George V 1915 Full Gold Sovereign in Royal Mint box with capsule £ 575.00 |
 | 2022 Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Gold Proof Sovereign with Box & COA £ 730.00 |
 | Gold Plated Full Sovereign Ring £ 10.00 |
 | A 9CT GOLD SOVEREIGN CASE Fully HALLMARKED £ 590.00 |
![Gold Proof Coin Full Sovereign Royal Mint Uk 1979 To 2024 Choose Your Year [A]](https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/hHgAAOSwHHdl12sO/s-l140.jpg) | Gold Proof Coin Full Sovereign Royal Mint Uk 1979 To 2024 Choose Your Year [A] £ 605.00 |
 | 1847 Victoria Sheild Gold Sovereign £ 699.00 |
 | 1968 Gold Full Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II - 22ct Gold Coin £ 550.00 |
 | 2024 Gold Sovereign £ 539.50 |
