Putradinar | Malaysia

Throughout the world, in primitive societies and advanced cultures alike, gold has been prized above all other metals, even at times ascending to the realms of mystical. Gold seemed to them deathless - pure gold cannot be attacked by oxygen and therefore cannot rust like iron, corrode like cooper and is impervious to most acids. As a result it was seen as the symbol of eternal life.Christopher Columbos wrote: "Gold constitutes treasure and he who possesses it has all he needs in this world".

Gold has extraordinary properties. It is extremely malleable for example, 10 grams of gold can be rolled and beaten into a translucent foil of three and a half square meters.  It is also a very heavy metal, having a specific gravity of 19.32, which is heavier than lead. Not surprisingly, gold and silver emerged early in history both as metals for jewellery and somewhat later, in coin form as economies based on money evolved from economies based on barter. While gold and silver, coins date back to antiquity the the problem of valuing them in terms of paper currency emerged only over the last two centuries. The emergence of paper money brought with it the problem of relating a "promise to pay" note to gold in order to give value to a worthless piece of paper.

Throughout history, gold and gold coins, have been the more valued "money" that has been withheld from circulation in times of political unrest and "debasement of the coinage". In modern times Central Banks and Governments are the holders of substantial reserves of gold and rarely (if ever) make payments with it. At most they use the gold as collateral. This is an illustration of Gresham's Law -" BAD MONEY DRIVES GOOD MONEY OUT OF CIRCULATION". If there are two, ore more qualities money available, people will hold on the more valuable money and spend the less valuable....... hmmm.......