Please don't misunderstand me. I am not advocating a return to gold coinage and all the inherent problems it presents. Did you know that reeded edges were introduced to prevent dishonest folk from shaving a little off the edge? Yeah, and copper was added to the mix to help slow down the wear factor. All I am talking about is the value the modern commodities market indicates.

Back to square one, or should I say cube one. For that 40' ^3 I come up with 110,592,000 cui. The American Double Eagle is 91.6% gold, 3.0% silver, and 5.33% copper and it's stated value was $20. The US bullion issue of date has the same chemical composition and has a stated value of $50. Go figure as it never had a value of $50 dollars. It was more like $200+ from the beginning and has done nothing but increase. It's an amazing thing about commodities, the volume and mass of the object never changes. What changes is the dollar and the more dollars does not mean that the object (i.e. and eg. the 1 oz troy gold) is "worth" more. It means that the dollar is worth less. When you are carting wheelbarrows full of script to buy a loaf of bread the truth of that statement becomes very apparent.

Sermonette aside, there are 16.387 cc in a cubic inch (cui)and the 1oz troy coin has 516 grains in about .5 cc. The coin is 34 mm dia. and about 2mm high at the rim (approx.). Anyhow I estimated the 40 foot cube to hold about 362,454,220,000 oz. troy. That seems like an adequate supply. That is roughly 60 oz for every person on Earth, give or take a few million here and there.

Gold concentrations in the oceans amount to about 1gm to .02gm per ton of water depending on the location and the cost for extracting the gold is prohibitive and very detrimental to the environment so this reduces the supply by roughly 75% or a little more. All the easily found stuff is for the most part found. You have to have money and equipment and great information to find whats left. Good luck. Gold usage in the US is 92% jewelry and the arts, 4% electronics, 3% dentistry, and 1% other industrial uses. I imagine US Mint sets is considered part of the arts group. The US exported $8.75 billion worth of gold in it's various forms and imported $5.63 billion dollars from foreign sources in their various forms with a net reduction in home resources of about $3.12 billion dollars worth. Our gold reserve base is about 90,000 metric tons so we are not running out in the near future.

True, the market is whatever the demand is. You can compare across the board with other commodities and equate ounces of gold with pork bellies or barrels of oil and that gives you another dimension on the value we place on those "things". The dollars is supposed to be the great mediator of all things of monetary value but I really wonder. Markets have always been volatile for one reason or another and they really reflect the faith or the fear of the participants.