Gold is alive and kicking in the digital, hi-tech, plugged-in, post-Cold War world whose experts say the global economy can function without such a "barbarous relic".
That "relic" has performed superbly as an investment asset over the past two years .
Gold has reasserted itself over a period during which the world's equity markets have sputtered, the dot-com boom has bombed and the once almighty US dollar has been humbled.
Written off when it fell to around US$250/oz in 2001, gold staged a remarkable comeback to peak at $389/oz just ahead of the invasion of Iraq this year, before pulling back to around $330 at end-April.
The issue, of course, is what happens next. The gloom merchants are out in full force predicting bullion's return to oblivion, but there's a powerful groundswell of informed opinion that gold will resume its upward trend.
The gold price started running long before the US revealed its intention to attack Iraq. There were fundamental global economic and political reasons and these remain valid .
That is despite a weaker physical market for gold.
The all-important jewellery sector last year consumed 2 689 t of gold, 11% down on the previous year's level and the lowest jewellery offtake in seven years.
The most worrying aspect of this was a 120 t drop in demand from India, the most important gold-consuming country. That fall was attributed to higher gold prices in 2002 and the effects of a poor monsoon season.
That's the bad news. The good news is the return of investment demand to the gold market. This has been driving the price over the past two years and investment demand did not disappear with the end of the war in Iraq.
The most authoritative look at the gold market is the annual publication from Gold Fields Mineral Services, which conducts an exhaustive survey of gold production and demand statistics.
The 2003 survey predicts the price will rise to $350/oz in the third calendar quarter of this year and continue to firm to around $375/oz in the fourth quarter.
