Meeting Thursday 10-Feb-2011 Speaker Rtn Mark Grimwade
with Russia yielding some 7%. 2,500 tons of gold is produced per year.
W Speaker Mark Grimwade T
hursday10th February Rotarian Mark Grimwade, from north London, visited
our club to talk about Gold. We know it is valuable but I suppose we generally take it for granted as most of us have our small pieces in the form of rings and other items of jewellery. Mark gave us a very informative talk, and I‘m sure that all Rotarians and guests present went away knowing a lot more about this precious commodity than we knew when we came in. The following account is an attempt to capture the essence of Mark‘s talk.
G G
old has been around for thousands of years and the ore was discovered in it‘s
‗native‘ state by several of the early civilisations. There are only two truly coloured metals, Gold and Copper. All other ores are whitish or bluish grey. There are only eight precious metals – gold, silver and six variations of platinum which are known as the ‘noble metals‘.
old forms a very small proportion of the earth‘s crust and it needs to yield 3ounces
per ton of earth for a commercial and financial investment to be viable. The area around Johannesburg in South Africa produces about 12% of the world‘s gold, although the mines are now operating some 2 to 3 miles down as the deposits are beginning to run out. The USA and Australia produce 10% of the world‘s gold
I
hen mined the gold is not pure as it is mixed with many other
ores so the deposits need to be proc- essed in order to remove the gold. Depending on the mixture of these other deposits the gold finally produced is graded with the higher grades obviously being more expen- sive than the lower grades. The very best quality gold, which has some 995 parts per 1000, is used for such things as jewellery and coinage.
n 2006 58% of gold produced was used for jewellery, 19% was used for investment (in
the form of bullion and coinage) 10% was used for ‗hedging‘ (buying and selling) and 13% was used for other purposes such as dentistry, electronics and medical.
T
he price is fixed by a cartel twice a day, at 10.30 am and 3.0pm, and it is always in
U.S.Dollars. On the day of the talk it was $1,367 per troy ounce (about 30 grams). By comparison Platinum was $1850, and Silver was $30 per ounce.
M
ark found himself working in the gold industry when he was offered a job with
the World Gold Council after the college where he was working (lecturing in metal- lurgy) was closed. The council is funded by the world‘s mining companies. Most of us lesser mortals know that gold is described as 18 carat or 9 carat, but not so many of us know why! The Carat is the seed of the locus bean tree, and is always the same size and weight. The carat is the ‗standard‘ of purity of gold and 24 carat gold is considered the purest. However it is too soft for jewellery so the best practical rings that most of us purchase in the United Kingdom are 18carat and below.
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