How much does a gold bar cost

You might be wondering, “how much is a bar of gold?” Well, unfortunately this number is always changing so it impossible to give you an exact number. However, you can check the spot price here. As of the date of this article, the gold price is over $1,300 for just one troy ounce. It is important to note that precious metals like gold cost troy ounces and not regular ounces which makes them one ounce is only .06 pounds by the way (for those of you like me and don’t know measurements. Put another way, one troy ounce of gold weighs only the weight of a compact disc (CD) or about 28 paper clips! You better not lose it.

You might be thinking gold is an expensive investment and rightly a great one to own. Well, yes and no. If you look at the 100-year price of an ounce of gold you will see a tremendous amount of fluctuation in how much a gold bar costs. Especially over the last 50 or so years.

CHECK CURRENT PRICES FOR GOLD ON Money Metals Exchange

Historical Value of Gold

Gold long term has certainly been on the rise. But that doesn’t sound as great when you factor in inflation. When you take the US 3% average inflation and compound it each year you see that we have a compounded 2000% inflation from the past 100 years. But even after adjusting for inflation gold has gone up almost 200% from 100 years ago. Like any investment in any asset you always have the risk of prices going up and down. If you could predict the worth of gold in the future than you would be a rich person. But most people can only speculate how the market is going to move. Still interested? If so, stick around for 9 other spectactularly interesting facts on gold.

9 Crazy and Interesting Facts on Gold

1. Gold is a limited resource and thus only has a certain supply in the world.

Sorry, I know this might seem obvious, but I think it is an important thing to remember. It is created through a natural process and in order to get gold you have to mine for it. Some might argue that since we can create diamonds, we should also be able to create gold. But a diamond is a molecule and gold is an atom. I’m not a big sciency person and thus am not going to get into specifics, but yeah, most experts say it isn’t going to happen any time soon if at all. So all that to say, gold should always have some value due to the fact that it is a limited resource.

2. A gold bar is the same thing as gold bullion.

It can also be called a gold ingot, but who honestly calls it that? Gold bars are generally cast or minted when they are being manufactured.

3. The United States stopped using the gold standard in 1971.

How Much does gold cost

Gold has worked as a reliable monetary system starting all the way back to Ancient Egyptian times. It is estimated that there was 829 kg or 1,850 pounds that were extracted from the first three years of King Tutmosis III rule. Up until 1971 when the gold standard was no longer used, all US dollars were backed by gold in federal vaults. Infamous President Nixon (think Watergate scandal) cut out the gold standard which gave the United States the ability to print as much money as they needed without the currency being backed. This leads me to our next interesting fact.

4. Since the abandonment of the Gold Standard (1971), the United States debt has gone from $414 billion to $14 trillion.

How much is one gold bar

That’s a lot of stinking 0’s. How many you might ask? $14 trillion is equal to $14,000 Billion. Put yet one other way, $414 billion does not even equal ½ of one trillion dollars! During the past 50 years the US dollar has lost 97% of its value. You just can't buy 25 cent candy bars anymore. 🙁

5. Since the year 2000, gold has outperformed every major market in the United States.

Investors of gold have found that their investment outperformed the S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow Jones, bonds, real estate, and really any other large investment. Sounds like a good investment to me.

6. There are typically 3 ways to invest in gold.

You can buy the physical asset of gold, you can buy a gold mutual fund, or you can trade futures or options on the cost of gold. One such fund is SPDR Gold Shares which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

7. Often times people buy gold when they think their currency will decline.

When the markets are flustering and investors are worried about inflation, investors will often times turn to gold to put their money. Gold tends to be thought of as more stable when markets are shaky. For instance, after the 9/11 crisis in the United States in 2001 the price of gold climbed from $370 all the way to almost $1800 for an ounce of gold in November of 2012. But, in more recent years, that number has begun to decline a little bit to show golds volatility.

8. It is argued that all the gold ever mined in human history would only fit into 2 Olympic sized swimming pools.

However, some say a more realistic number is a little more than 3 Olympic sized swimming pools.

9. Yes, you can eat gold.

How much does a gold bar cost?

Photo: @manilasocialclub/Instagram

But I wouldn’t if I were you, considering how much a gold bar costs, that would be an insanely expensive meal. Plus it is not digestible and has no nutritional value. No thanks, I don’t want a shiny gold stomach. Yet, some people do still argue that eating gold flakes provides health benefits.

Back during the time of WW2 it is said that Jews would swallow it so that the Nazi’s could not take it away from them. I don’t think that was for nutritional purposes. Of course the bible mentions quite a bit about the gold. It reminds me of the Exodus story in the bible where Moses had the Israelite's drink a grounded up, powdery gold after they had made a golden calf to worship. If only they knew eating gold flakes was in style now!