13 Facts You Should Know Before Investing in Gold

13 Facts You Should Know Before Investing in Gold

Gold, the ultimate representation of success and wealth, has always been the most popular asset type for investors for a kind of reasons. Still, should you just buy it?

From an investment perspective, it’s always sufficient to limit your gold investments to 5-10% of your overall portfolio’s worth. People buy and invest in gold irrespective of age and earnings. Gold grows more attractive in times of any crisis or pandemic as it is considered the most reliable asset class and one of the best hedging tools against inflation.

Everything be the reason for the yellow metal’s growing popularity among investors, just buying or spending in gold without taking other factors into point makes little sense. For, one may get duped – particularly in case of buying gold silver — or may end up buying gold at increased prices, or there may be some purity issue.

Investing in gold?

India (NRIs included) is crazy about gold silver. With the World Gold Council (WGC) aggressively marketing social and religious purposes as gold buying events, the demand has shot up in recent years to report levels. Research shows that over 16,000 tonnes of gold are there in Indian households predominantly in the form of jewelry. The value of this as per market price is a whooping ₹ 27.2 lakh crore. That is close to twice the international exchange resources held by the RBI. Let's consider the parts one needs to be aware of and the know-how of investing in gold.

13 Historical Facts About Gold

1. The word "gold" comes from the Old English word "golden", which was received from “gulþa” in Germanic. 

2. Nearly 200,000 tonnes of gold have been mined by people. 

3. Since 1950, ⅔ of above-ground gold has been worked.

4. Gold has been found in all seven regions.

5. There is an expected total of 10 billion tons of gold in the world's oceans. It’s so diluted, however, that it’s difficult to mine. 

6. The transformation of everyday materials into gold is called chrysopoeia.

7. A carat was originally a unit of mass based on the carob seed used by classical traders.

8. The most battered golden object was discovered in Bulgaria. The discovery limited that humans were metalworking with this material as far back as 6,500 years ago.  

9. After the times of Greco-Roman Egypt, alchemists have believed that it was likely to turn ordinary metals – like lead – into gold. 

10. The largest gold in existence is the "Hand of Faith.” Discovered with a metal detector in Australia in 1980, you can view it at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas.

11. Olympic gold badges were made from pure gold until 1912. They’re currently required to contain a minimum of 6 grams of gold and at least 92% silver. 

12. The Aztec word for gold is "teocuitatl" which translates to "evacuation of the gods."

13. About 50 years before the 1848 California Gold Rush, a gold rush occurred in North Carolina.