Gold is dispersed throughout the Earth's crust and has since ancient times been valued both for its scarcity and for its metallurgical properties. Before the 19th century, most nations maintained a bimetallic monetary system, which often included gold and was based on the Gold Price Per Gram. 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 new global economy, the common standard facilitated international monetary transactions and stabilized exchange rates.
From 284 to 305 AD, Diocletian further downgraded gold to 70 coins per pound initially, but coins were later issued at 60 coins per pound. To illustrate, in 301 CE, a pound of gold was worth 50,000 denarii, which is another silver-based currency. Roosevelt banned the circulation of gold coins, although gold was still used to define the value of the dollar. After the stock market crash of 1929, many investors began to exchange paper money for its value in gold.
Due to its value and its usefulness as a currency, the evolution of the value of gold dates back to 30 BC. C. Gold has been considered precious throughout history, but it wasn't used as money until around 550 BC. The next revaluation occurred in the period from 211 to 217 AD, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla), who reduced the value to 50 coins per pound of gold, reducing the value of each coin and making gold worth more.
After the war, the gold standard returned, but economic growth in the 1920s surpassed gold reserves, and some countries supplemented their reserves with stable currencies such as the pound and the dollar, which, like gold, had acquired in people's minds a permanent measure of abstract value. Interest rates are linked to inflation, so they have historically also been closely related to gold prices. In 1914, the restriction on gold exports at the outbreak of the First World War forced the use of inconvertible paper money. The following chart shows the price of gold since 1968, with some notable events in the gold market.
Here's some research I did to explore what caused gold prices to rise (and then) fall so dramatically in the first 3 months of 1980.
