Yes, and in 1981 it was ~$800. Which means a return of ~50% over 29 years while paying no dividends whatsoever.

You can make pretty much anything look like a good or bad investment if you pick your start and endpoints carefully.

That's a fair point in general, but you didn't make clear in your example that you were choosing one of the worst times someone could have invested in Gold. I don't think this takes away from your argument -- it's just that I would suggest specifying whether your data point was arbitrary or carefully chosen to make your point. I think this would make your general argument stronger.

I think the most interesting, non-arbitrary comparison would be an investment starting in 1971, because this whole discussion is really about a fiat currency system versus gold, and how people value gold relative to such a system. 1971 is when the U.S. went completely off of Gold to a fiat system.

At the end of 1971, a few years after Gold started trading on open markets, the price was $41.25 an ounce [1]. Today, it is $1,100 an ounce [2]. That is a 26 fold increase.

At the end of 1971, the DJIA was $900 a share [3]. Today, it is $10,000 a share [3]. That is an 11 fold increase.

Gold outperformed our current dollar system, since its inception, by more than two fold.

That's not to mention the fact that you didn't have to do anything with Gold -- you just held it. With our dollar system, you'd be a fool to just hold the dollars themselves (because of inflation), so you are forced to speculate in the stock market or other risky vehicles.

[1]: http://www.measuringworth.org/datasets/gold/ [2]: http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/precious/gold.html [3]: http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=INDEXDJX:DJI

Some people always say gold is a great investment, other people always say it's a terrible one. Both sides are wrong.

gold is a stopgap against catastrophe, not an investment in the traditional sense.

That's pretty much how I think of it, but I've also gotten a 39% gain with it over the past year or so.

whereas most people experienced catastrophe over the last year or so. commodities move inversely to cash investments.