Old frenzy missing as gold prices hit record
Updated: 2008-01-08 11:37
Gold price at record levels? Pah! It ain't like it used to be.
Compared with the frenzy that went on back in 1979-80, the last time prices were this high, reaction to the current rise to record levels for the yellow metal is decidedly tame.
Where is the mad rush to cash in on any old bit of gold lying around at home? Where is the drumbeat of gold as the savior of humankind?
People back then rushed to cash in and have their gold fillings taken out. In America, the high school graduation ring looked at times to be an endangered species as it headed for the gold melter.
Jim Srodes, a mega-freelancer who produced reams of business and finance copy for clients across the world from his Washington DC offices, was in the thick of it as a writer for a gold "newsletter" called the Wolfe Wire.
The Wolfe Wire - named for founder Thomas Wolfe, who had retired as director of the US Treasury's gold licensing office after the United States dropped off the gold standard - sent stories via telex to about 50 high-flying clients.
Reflecting the frenetic demand for gold news back then, the service cost $5,000 a year, around $14,000 in today's money. Srodes says it was billed the most expensive newsletter in the world.
No stories about gold were too small to care about. Take for instance the sudden interest in an obscure US military paraphernalia auction. Among the items under the hammer were a sizeable number of old survival kits handed out to pilots who might find themselves downed in enemy territory.
What might have been a run-of-the-mill event took on far greater interest when it was discovered that gold was among the items in the kits for the pilots to bribe their way out of tricky situations.
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