The central-bank bid
The defining structural feature of the current gold market is official demand: central banks — led, on the reported numbers, by China, and by more than the reported numbers if the flows are to be believed — have been buying at a pace that changed the market's floor. Our flagship investigation, The Dragon's Hoard, works through what Beijing reports, what the trade data implies, and why the gap matters — documented and inferred kept strictly apart.
Gold as the measuring stick
Gold's deepest use is as a unit of account for everything else — which is what The Great Debasement measures: two thousand years of currencies against the metal, from the denarius to the 1913 dollar's three remaining cents. The gold/silver ratio extends the same idea inside the metals complex.
Gold you can hold
US gold coinage splits into pre-1933 circulating gold (quarter eagles through the Saint-Gaudens double eagle — struck at 90% fine, melted by the millions after Executive Order 6102, and collectible far above melt in many dates) and modern bullion (American Gold Eagles, one troy ounce of gold at a market premium). Every type has a live-melt reference page in our coin guides. A gold stress index — leasing conditions, ETF flows, regional premiums, official demand — is in methodology development; per our rules, the score ships only when it's defensible.