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History · 14 July 2026

The Gold Standard: How a Soft Yellow Metal Became Money

…de gold a wholesale settlement asset between states rather than a coin in a pocket. · The 1971 suspension of dollar convertibility ended official convertibility but not gold's role as a reserve asset. · Keynes's 'barbarous relic' critique was an argument against subordinating emp…

Marguerite Adler · 14 min read

Industry · 4 August 2026

The Gold Inside Your Phone

…ply-side — a refining bottleneck or a substitution breakthrough — rather than demand-side shocks. · A brief history of gold in electronics · Gold's role in electronics is not a recent accommodation to modern engineering standards; it dates to the earliest days of the transistor.…

Tomas Herrera · 18 min read

Markets · 8 September 2026

The Real-Rate Trade: Why Gold Moves When Bond Yields Do

…ork was born in the fires of the 1970s. After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, gold was allowed to float freely against the dollar. For much of that decade, the Federal Reserve was perceived as being 'behind the curve,' failing to raise interest rates fast enough…

Ingrid Sørensen · 25 min read

Industry · 6 August 2026

The Scrap Trade

…ation. The melt is the moment the trade stops guessing. · Recycled supply is the market's shock absorber · Mine output responds to price on a timescale of years, constrained by permits, capital and ore bodies. Recycled supply responds in weeks. When the price spikes, counters fil…

Ingrid Sørensen · 16 min read

Science · 10 August 2026

Where Gold Actually Comes From

…rgin, which means the flow of newly mined metal can never move the price the way a supply shock moves the price of a commodity that is consumed and does not accumulate. A poor mining year barely dents an inventory built up over five millennia. · It also explains why recycling has…

Tomas Herrera · 17 min read

Industry · 7 August 2026

After the Cyanide

Every ounce of mined gold leaves behind roughly a tonne of processed rock and the water that carried it. What happens to that material after the last shift is the part of the industry with the longest…

Tomas Herrera · 16 min read

Markets · 20 June 2026

Bring It Home: Central Banks and the Great Gold Repatriation

For half a century it was rational to store your gold in someone else's basement. Then the calculus of counterparty risk changed, and reserve managers started chartering aircraft. · Overseas custody w…

Ingrid Sørensen · 14 min read

Mining · 5 August 2026

Grade, Cut-off and the Arithmetic of an Open Pit

A gold mine is not a hole with gold in it. It is a spreadsheet with a hole attached — and the single number that decides which rock is ore and which rock is waste moves every time the price does. · Mo…

Amara Okonjo · 20 min read

Craft · 22 July 2026

Hallmarks and Assay: How Anyone Proves Gold Is Gold

A hallmark is one of the oldest consumer protection technologies in continuous use. It is also, on close inspection, a small masterpiece of institutional design — and it is being quietly eroded. · A h…

Yusuf Demir · 15 min read

Industry · 7 August 2026

How Fake Gold Is Detected

Counterfeiting gold is not about making something that looks right. It is about defeating a specific test, and the industry's defences are an escalating conversation between forgers and instruments. ·…

Tomas Herrera · 16 min read

Markets · 8 August 2026

Moving Bullion: The Logistics Nobody Prices

Between the vault and the buyer sits an industry of armoured vehicles, sealed cargo, bonded warehouses and insurance clauses. It rarely makes news, and it is the reason a spot price in London can dive…

Ingrid Sørensen · 15 min read

Mining · 19 August 2026

Nine Grams a Tonne

What does it actually cost to pull an ounce of gold out of the ground? The honest answer runs through grade decline, energy and water bills, permitting delays and the closure liabilities nobody prices…

Amara Okonjo · 18 min read

Industry · 2 July 2026

Nine Nines: Inside a Modern Gold Refinery

A doré bar arrives at 85 per cent purity and leaves at 99.99. Between those two numbers sit chlorine gas, aqua regia, an electrolytic cell and a chain of custody that is now as valuable as the metal i…

Tomas Herrera · 19 min read

Markets · 17 August 2026

Paper Gold: What You Own When You Do Not Own Bars

Most of the world's gold exposure is a contract, not a metal. Futures, unallocated accounts and exchange-traded funds each promise gold in a different way — and the differences only become visible whe…

Ingrid Sørensen · 23 min read

Craft · 5 June 2026

The Alchemy of Craft: What Goldsmiths Know That Machines Don't

Gold's working properties are so extreme they border on the absurd — one gram drawn into three kilometres of wire. Inside a trade where the tools have barely changed and the hands are irreplaceable. ·…

Yusuf Demir · 16 min read

History · 9 August 2026

The Hoard Problem: What Buried Gold Actually Tells Us

A field of gold torcs and coins is a spectacular find and a treacherous document. The people who buried it were not writing to us, and the reasons they had for putting it in the ground are exactly wha…

Marguerite Adler · 16 min read

Markets · 11 September 2026

The Last Audit: What We Actually Know About the World's Official Gold

Governments report holding roughly 36,000 tonnes of gold — a figure quoted everywhere and verified almost nowhere. Between the published number and the physical bar sits a chain of certificates, custo…

Ingrid Sørensen · 22 min read

Science · 8 August 2026

The Metal That Went Medical

Divide gold finely enough and it stops being gold-coloured, stops being inert in the way you expect, and starts doing work in places no bullion bar could reach — including the test strip that told you…

Amara Okonjo · 19 min read

Science · 9 August 2026

The Metallurgy of Karat

Pure gold is too soft to hold a stone, too soft to hold an edge, and the wrong colour for half the world's taste. Almost everything you own that is gold is a designed alloy — and the design is where t…

Tomas Herrera · 17 min read

Mining · 22 May 2026

The Other Supply Chain: Artisanal Mining and the Mercury Problem

A significant share of the world's gold is produced by people working with hand tools, informal finance and a neurotoxin. Formalisation is the stated solution. Nobody agrees on what it costs. · Artisa…

Amara Okonjo · 15 min read

Industry · 20 August 2026

The Refiner's Ledger

Somewhere between a mine's doré bar and a Good Delivery brick sits a chain of chlorination furnaces, electrolytic cells, assay labs and accreditation committees that decides which gold the world's mar…

Tomas Herrera · 17 min read

Markets · 18 August 2026

The Vault Beneath the City

Beneath the Bank of England and beneath lower Manhattan sit two of the largest concentrations of monetary gold on earth, moved between anonymous compartments by a handful of porters who never touch th…

Ingrid Sørensen · 22 min read

Craft · 3 August 2026

The Wedding-Season Bid: How Jewellery Demand Sets the Floor

Half the world's gold is worn, not stored. In India and China that distinction barely exists — and the buying behaviour it produces is the most reliably contrarian force in the entire market. · Jewell…

Yusuf Demir · 15 min read

Industry · 28 July 2026

Urban Mining: The Richest Gold Ore on Earth Is in Your Old Phone

A tonne of good underground ore holds a few grams of gold. A tonne of discarded circuit boards can hold two hundred. So why is most of it still going into landfill? · Concentration, not tonnage, is wh…

Tomas Herrera · 16 min read

Markets · 2 August 2026

Who Actually Sets the Gold Price

There is no single gold price. There is a London settlement number, a New York futures curve, a Shanghai premium and a jeweller's counter in Dubai — and the distance between them is where the market l…

Ingrid Sørensen · 16 min read

Markets · 6 August 2026

Why Central Banks Started Buying Gold Again

For three decades official institutions were net sellers of bullion, and the policy consensus treated the metal as a museum piece. Then, quietly, the world's reserve managers reversed. The reasons are…

Ingrid Sørensen · 14 min read

Policies · 6 August 2026

Financial Disclaimer

…eresting and routinely abused. A chart that begins at the end of dollar convertibility in 1971 tells one story; a chart that begins at the 1980 peak tells almost the opposite one; a chart in real rather than nominal terms tells a third. When we publish a long series we state the…