Sought
after since the beginning of recorded history, gold remains a highly
valued metal, reaching record highs recently, climbing over 135% in
value in the past year alone. The recent rise in the price of gold comes
just as annual worldwide mine production has decreased - down by nearly 8% since 2001. In human history, only 161,000 tons of gold have been mined -
more than half of that extracted in just the past 50 years. Collected
here are a handful of recent photographs of people searching for,
mining, rediscovering, celebrating, buying and selling gold.
A
visitor touches the world's largest solid gold brick weighing 220kg
(worth over US $7.8 million at today's price), at the Jinguashi Gold
Museum in Ruifang, Taipei county, on December 2, 2009.
Hava
Katz, the head of the national treasures of Israel's Antiquities
Authority, holds up a 1,000-year-old gold coin minted in Egypt and dated
1,095 AD, supposedly brought to Jerusalem by Muslim pilgrims, during an
exhibition at the Davidson Archeological center in Jerusalem's Old city
on November 11, 2009.
A
statue of a bird of prey made of gold is pictured at a gold and silver
exhibition at theGinza Tanaka store in Tokyo October 23, 2009.
An artisan makes gold ornaments at a jewelery factory in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata November 13, 2009.
A
man holds a spoon full of gold leaf, ready to eat it with his sushi at
the "Seven Sushi Samurai" Sushi of the Year awards 2009 at the Olympia
exhibition center in west London, on November 14, 2009. The gold leaf
was an ingredient in last year's winner Mitsunori Kusakabe's entry.
Children from the Turkana area of Kanukurdio pan for flakes of gold which helps sustain their families on November 9, 2009 near Lodwar, Kenya.
Trays
with gold ingots are placed in a room for final weighing and packaging
at the Krastsvetmet plant in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk November
16, 2009.
Pedro
Linares uses a calculator to determine how much the company he works
for, Fast Cash Gold Parties, will pay for the gold jewelry that he is
weighing on October 30, 2009 in Hialeah, Florida. As the price of gold
remains high, the company is busy setting up these modern day Tupperware
parties to buy people's unwanted gold in their homes.
Colombian
gold prospectors mine for the precious metal on the river Dagau,
Zaragoza province, Cauca, Colombia on November 17, 2009. About 8,000
gold prospectors work illegally on the Dagua river to support their
families, local authorities said.
Metal
detector enthusiast David Booth poses with his hoard of Iron Age Gold
on November 4, 2009 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Booth discovered the gold
Iron Age torcs buried on on private land in Stirlingshire - the items
dating from between 300-100 BC. The hoard is currently under protection
of the Treasure Trove Unit, under Scottish law, the Crown can claim any
archaeological objects found in Scotland.
Gold-toothed
football player Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans sits on the bench
during their game against the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park
on November 8, 2009 in San Francisco, California.
A
gold miner pushes a wheelbarrow to carry rocks which will be processed
for gold in an artisanal mine in Abangares, north of San Jose, Costa
Rica on December 9, 2009. Costa Rica is pushing to legalize a 600
informal miners of small-scale miners who scrape out tiny amounts of
gold from abandoned mine shafts using dangerous and polluting
techniques.
People
work in an illegal gold mine in a national park forest near Novo
Progresso in Brazil's northern state of Paral on September 15, 2009...
A
Christie's employee looks at a creation "Relief Eponge" by Yves Klein
on display at the auction house in London, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010. The
gold sponge relief creation is to be auctioned at the "Post-war and
Contemporary" sale on Feb. 11 with an estimated price of 5.7 to 8
million euros (US $8.2 to 11.4 million).
A
model displays pure gold Disney character dolls showing Snow White and
the seven dwarfs, priced at 30 million yen ($300,000 USD) and produced
by Tanaka Kikinzoku Jewelry in Tokyo on November 4, 2009 for the
promotion of Blu-ray disks of Disney movies.
A
Caterpillar Inc. mining truck moves along a road at the AngloGold
Ashanti Ltd. Cripple Creek Victor gold mine in Victor/Cripple
Creek,
Colorado, on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Africa's largest gold producer, purchased Golden Cycle Gold Corp.
Sharon
Brumley pours fusion samples into cone molds to determine the total
gold content in a sample at the AngloGold Ashanti Ltd.
A
carbon recovery circuit adsorbs gold in a sodium cyanide solution at
the AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. Cripple Creek Victor gold mine in
Colorado on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009.
Gold-plated
Berlin Bear awards are lined up for the upcoming Berlinale
International Film Festival at Noak bronze foundry in Berlin January 20,
2010.
A
worker holds a geological core sample containing copper and gold to
visitors at the Oyu Tolgoi mine site in Khanbogd village, Umnugobi
province, Mongolia on Saturday Nov. 7, 2009. Mongolia is trying to
capitalize on its vast mineral wealth to help thecountry lift itself out
of poverty.
A
woman wades deep under a river bank to collect mud to pan for gold in
Pidie district in Indonesia's Aceh province November 2, 2009.
Residents
in the area engaged in traditional gold mining can get about 1.5-2
grams of gold and earn 275,000 rupiah ($28) per day.
A villager looks for gold dust from sand along a river at Pidie district, Indonesia's Aceh province November 2, 2009.
Bulgarian
archaeologist Veselin Ignatov holds a gold-plated silver cup with an
image of the Greek God of love Eros, found at a Thracian mound near the
village of Karanovo, Bulgaria on November 17, 2009. A team of
archaeologists led by Ignatov found a chariot, two silver cups, golden
rings and jewelry, clay and glass artifacts dating back to the first
century A.D...
Illegal
miners search for gold on the mountain of Tumpang Pitu in Banyuwangi,
East Java, Indonesia on November 21, 2009. The mine has been in
operation since June 2009 and local villagers have began protesting
because the waste produced by the mine is polluting the environment.
An illegal miner pans for gold at the mountain of Tumpang Pitu in Banyuwangi, East Java, Indonesia on November 21, 2009.
A
Japanese girl admires a gold model named "Wishing to shooting stars" at
a gold and silver craft exhibition in Tokyo on October 23, 2009. The
30cm-tall, 15kg pure gold artifact is worth 130 million yen (US $1.3
million).
Molten
gold and flux used to remove impurities glows red hot as it is melted
in an induction melting machine at Dvir Stoler Refining in New
York, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 4, 2010.
Robert Stoler pours molten gold into an ingot mold at Dvir Stoler Refining in New York, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 4, 2010.
Gold busts of (l-r) Chinese leaders President Hu Jintao, former president Jiang Zemin, late patriarch Deng Xiaoping and
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