FSU Contributor: How Much Gold Exists, and Where Is It? by Paul Tustain 03/15/2004

How Much Gold Exists, and Where Is It?
by Paul Tustain
Editor, www.galmarley.com
March 15, 2004

A question: If all the gold ever produced in the world was formed into a single block, how long would its edge be?

The length of a tennis court [22 metres]?
The length of a football pitch [100 metres]?
The length of a golf shot [200 metres]?

In fact, at 19 metres it's quite a bit shorter than a tennis court, and that includes all the privately held coins, bars and jewelry in the world - some 75% of the total. The world's monetary gold reserve is a block of only one quarter that volume, and America's reserve is only one quarter of that. Fort Knox hides only a modest hole in the ground.

There's not much gold left elsewhere in the ground, either. Approximately 50,000 tonnes (about a third of what is already out) remains un-mined and will cost in excess of $300 an ounce to extract. Meanwhile, after steadily more detailed worldwide surveys, the mining industry consensus is that large mineral deposit discoveries are now a thing of the past.

In fact gold is - as it always has been - extremely scarce.

Here is a table of gold amounts and values. Take a deep breath before the last few lines.

Kilograms	Value @ $390/Oz	Litres	How Much
0.008	$100	0.00041	A British sovereign coin
0.031	$390	0.00161	US Eagle / Canadian Maple coin
0.100	$1.254	0.00518
0.500	$6,269	0.02591
1	$12,539	0.0518	1 kilo - a golf ball sized sphere
2	$25,077	0.1036
3	$37,616	0.1554
4	$50,154	0.2073
5	$62,693	0.2591
6	$75,231	0.311	A can of 'Coke'
7	$87,770	0.363
8	$100,309	0.415
9	$112,847	0.466
10	$125,386	0.518
12	$156,000	0.645	A standard 400 oz bullion bar
20	$250,772	1.04	A litre bottle of water
50	$626,929	2.59
100	$1,253,858	5	A good sized deposit box
1,000	$12,538,580	52
10,000	$125,385,802	518	Half a cubic metre - fits in a corner of a small bank vault.
100,000	$1,253,858,025	5,181
1,000,000	$12,538,580,000	51,813	A small living room - and more than twice Britain's gold reserve.
8,139,000	$102,051,504,000	421,710	The US gold reserve fits into a town house.
30,000,000	$376,163,190,000	1,554,404	The world's total financial reserve of gold (central banks + significant global financial institutions like International Monetary Fund and Bank for International Settlements).
100,000,000	$1,253,858,024,000	5,181,347	The approximate total of all privately held jewelry bullion and coin.
140,000,000	$1,755,401,234,000	7,253,886	All the gold in the world - A block with edges 3 metres short of a standard sized tennis court.
	$7,000,000,000,000		The approximate value of US sovereign debt (which excludes future welfare obligations, none of which have been reserved in the public accounts [see below - generational debt]).
	$25,000,000,000,000		The approximate value of the world's nominal sovereign debt.
	$44,000,000,000,000		The approximate value of the US generational debt - the cost of providing to the current working population what it believes itself entitled to in future welfare. i.e. the extent to which the US government has failed to reserve assets to pay for implied promises.

Of the US sovereign debt some 40% is owed to foreigners; a lot to the Japanese. They've been holding on to US Treasury bonds which they bought with the dollars they took in payment for all those Toyotas.

But now they are unhappy at losing their savings to the falling dollar. Their finance minister has just decided to convert some of their dollars to gold.

The table graphically illustrates how little he can successfully convert.

Paul Tustain - Editor - www.galmarley.com

Enjoy learning about the history of gold's role in money and international trade and make your own comparison to the world around you. Articles in the series include:

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Paul Tustain
Editor
www.galmarley.com a completely free gold research site. If you need to understand the facts, figures and arguments about gold, then you might find it useful.
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