Fixed gold prices represent the compound prices reached by several commercial banks and brokerage firms in the OTC gold bullion markets. When analyzing Live Gold Price movements over the past five decades, the most prevalent trend is the increase in gold prices during times of economic uncertainty, followed by declining prices and periods of stability during the intervening years of economic growth. Gold is now more valuable than at any time in history, but this upward trend is not guaranteed to last forever. The story of the past five decades really begins in 1971, when President Nixon told the Federal Reserve to stop respecting the value of the dollar in gold. Adrian Ash is director of research at BullionVault, the world's leading physical gold, silver and platinum marketplace for private online investors.
Learn little known data about the price peaks of the four precious metals (gold, silver, platinum and palladium) from the 1970s to 1980 and where this 21st century bull market for bullion could be headed. In other words, the panic reaction of central bankers to the current credit crisis makes buying gold attractive even before considering the fundamentals of the gold market itself. Before the 19th century, most nations maintained a bimetallic monetary system, which often included gold but consisted mainly of silver. However, over the centuries, gold has always been used as a key indicator of the states of global economies and as a means of anticipating what may be on the horizon in terms of fiscal growth.
This means that right now is an ideal time to sell your gold and take advantage of the favorable price trends of the past two years. Here's a more detailed analysis of the history of gold and gold prices over the past 50 years to help determine the direction gold could take in the coming years and why now is the ideal time to sell your gold. Roosevelt banned the circulation of gold coins, although gold was still used to define the value of the dollar. Starting in Britain in 1821, monetary units were exchangeable for a fixed amount of gold, a change that Britain expected would stabilize its rapidly growing economy.
As the Industrial Revolution spread, other countries followed suit, and by the end of the 19th century, most industrialized nations were following the gold standard. In the United States and many other countries, currencies remained “linked to gold” until the 1970s, when the decline in global reserves marked the gold standard's last death sentence. Gold is dispersed throughout the Earth's crust and has since ancient times been valued both for its scarcity and for its metallurgical properties.
