Hi friends! I am writing this at the beginning of April, 2025. Gold, which is traded as a commodity, has been dipping over and under a spot price of $3000/oz. for a few weeks now.
In 2019, when the spot price of gold hit $2000/oz., I was working in a gem lab and jewelry appraisal office in Portland, Oregon. Clients walked into the office wide-eyed with the opener, "Gold just hit two thousand!" This seemed like an unprecedented, once-in-a-lifetime high price. Safes were cracked open and piles of old jewelry which had been sitting on ice were wheeled over to the scrapper.
Six years later, the spot price today is 50% higher with no end in sight. Industry groups which I'm a member of discuss this ad nauseum. ("Gold just hit three thousand!" gets posted in the online forums about half a dozen times a day.) My goldsmith mused that he doesn't think we'll see gold under $2000/oz. again in our lifetimes and I suspect he may be right.
When record gold values make headlines, it catches people's attention. In the context of an economy with low confidence in the dollar, is it wise to hedge spare funds into purchasing gold? I'll share my thoughts in a moment but first, some general information about this incredible metal which may be of interest:
• The scientific symbol for gold, Au, is derived from early variations of the word aurum, meaning "glow" or "dawn."
• Culturally, we associate gold with many things: wealth, luxury, success, prestige, warmth, ritual, the sun, purity, winning first place and with the divine masculine.
• Gold has been fashioned into jewelry since between 4600 and 4200 BC. We have these dates on record thanks to dating of the Varna Necropolis, a prehistoric burial site located in what is now Bulgaria. The site was discovered in 1972 and the range of artifacts unearthed included many gold objects and pieces of personal adornment.
(Photograph of relics from the Varna Necropolis via Visit Varna.)
Scientifically, gold (Au) is both a Noble metal and the sixth densest metal - even more dense than lead! Gold is unique for it's warm, yellow-toned color. It is durable, highly malleable, does not tarnish or corrode and is a good conductor for heat and electricity.
(A micro-image of gold taken using scanning tunneling microscopy [STM] via Wikipedia.)
• It is believed that gold originally formed in supernovae and from the collision of neutron stars. There are theories that a certain percentage of the gold deposits on earth came to the planet by asteroid impact during the early lifetime of our planet.
• Gold is mined all over the world. Today, it is primarily mined in China, South Africa and Australia. Gold is found mostly in quartz veins and alluvial (river) deposits. Rarely, it is found in crystal form:
(Left: crystallized gold on quartz matrix from Eagle's Nest, California, USA. Size: 7 x 4 cm; Anton Watzl collection; photo: Albert Russ | Right: gold aggregate on quartz matrix from Eagle's Nest, California, USA. Size 15 x 9 cm; Anton Watzl collection; photo: Albert Russ. Images via MineralExpert.org)
Gold was first minted in coin form around 600 BC. During the Age of Exploration, many Europeans set sail across the Atlantic Ocean in search of promised of golden cities in the Americas. In the mid 1800s, the United States of America had a spate of gold rushes in the Appalachian Mountains, the Colorado Rockies and in California. (I grew up in Colorado and finding old mining towns and long-abandoned lean-tos and cabins in the woods was a regular part of summer camping trips.)
• The gold standard is an economic system wherein a country's currency is backed by a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was employed in America from the 1870s to the early 1920s; from the late 1920s until 1932 and from 1944 to 1971. No country currently employs a gold standard; Switzerland was the last to abandon the gold standard in the 1990s.
So, gold is a commodity. It's beautiful, useful, symbolic, and worth a lot of money. In fact, it's worth 30% more today than it was six years ago; that beats an ETF!
What is a pragmatic approach for the current state of the gold market?
I'm not going to advise you with a hard yes or a hard no against investing in gold. My area of expertise is gemology and jewelry, and I come from a perspective of risk-aversion.
Generally speaking, the advice to "buy low, sell high" is almost never going to steer you wrong. So, despite the abundant interest in gold today, whether you would or could turn a long-term profit by purchasing bullion bars at this market peak remains TBD.
I had a conversation with another antique jewelry community friend recently about how buying gold (and specifically, buying gold jewelry) being framed around investment is a new, and kind of skeevy, marketing technique.
It's one of a few trends I'm seeing in the industry right now:
(1) Antique and vintage jewelry sellers raising their prices in response to the rising cost of gold. (Side note: I will never do this - I purchase my inventory outright and it is priced to allow me to make a profit and a living; I am not here to opportunistically gouge my clientele because I love y'all.)
(2) Jewelry designers with production lines raising their prices in response to the rising cost of gold. (This I feel is justified; these designers are having to buy gold regularly to make new pieces; in order to be profitable they often must raise their prices.)
(3) The wholesale encouragement to buyers to Buy now! Hurry up! You might never see these prices again! in tandem with the sales pitch of,
(4) "Gold Jewelry Is An Investment."
One thing I said to my friend was (and I'm paraphrasing now in more polite language,) "the people who are most eager to invest in diamonds, gemstones, gold or jewelry always seem to be the ones who completely ignore and tune out the fact that many lifetime members/experts of the diamond/gold/jewelry industry are not themselves investing in these things."
I also think that sometimes the framing of something as an "investment" is more purchasing psychology than anything, designed to help stave off buyer's remorse.
With all of that said, do I personally know people who are successfully investing in diamonds, gemstones, gold and jewelry? 100%.
The really serious investors take their time and invest first in education. They're often the ones putting a family member through GIA classes. They're also often the ones spending well into the six and seven figures on a single item. These are the sorts of purchases that, when bought discerningly, are likely to turn a profit. They'll be held, insured and in a safe for several to many years, then return to the market in a well-timed auction at a prestigious auction house.
For the people without the six and seven figure budgets? By all means, buy gold and buy jewelry, but please do not look at it and do not ask of it to be an investment. If the world fell apart, I know I have a certain dollar amount of gold and gemstones I can take to the scrapper. I would hate to do this, but in an absolute bind, it could be done. However, to me, that isn't an investment.
With all of that said, if you have gold lying around that you aren't wearing: broken jewelry you know you'll never want to repair or rehab, dental gold, etc. now could be a good time to sell it.
My best advice for selling gold is to shop it around. Like any other financial endeavor, get at least three quotes (most gold buyers will make you an offer that's good until the end of that business day.) Ask your friends and family for recommendations of who they like working with and don't let anyone pressure or hard-sell you.
I have industry membership with a wholesale gold buyer and I can buy gold from the public; this is a service I offer for my local clients. However, I would offer these clients the same advice: I will make you an offer that works for me, but you should get another quote or two from other local businesses before you hand the pieces off to me (or anyone else.)