Re: [DL] Value of Gold/Gold Bars

[Greg Campbell <gcampbel@VT.EDU>]

The value of a gold bar would depend on a couple of factors, it's weight
(of course), but also it's purity.  While the Mints might deal with bars
of standardized size and purity, bars of crudely smelted gold created at
the mining operations themselves might vary widely.

A couple of things you might consider when pricing bars of gold.

First:  Where did the bars come from?  Are these standardized 60 pound
bars of .999 fine gold from/for the Mint?  Or are they 50 to 55 pound bars
that are only 70 to 80% pure that some fly by night mining operation does
on site?  Determine the weight and purity of the bars in question.

Second.  A $20 Gold Double Eagle coin (  worth $20 ;^)  ) is .9675 troy
ounces of pure gold.  There are 12 troy ounces to the pound.  To make
it simple I usually round the coins up to 1 troy ounce and say that there
are 12 coins to the pound.  That would make one pound of pure gold
worth about $240.

I would say that the exact number, size and purity of gold bars is up to you.
You may want to start out with how much you want the Posse to end up
with and then calculate backwards.
                                         - Greg Campbell

At 07:17 PM 3/18/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>Does anyone have an idea of how much a bar of gold would be worth in the
>Weird West? There are a few for the posse to find in "On Harrowed Ground,"
>but I haven't been able to find any value for them. The best information
>I've been able to find so far says that gold was about $22.30/oz back in
>1876 (http://goldinfo.net/goldhistory.html), but I have no idea how much
>bars back then weigh. I've found that 400 ounces is about the standard for
>today (http://newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99241.htm), but I'm not
>sure if the same could be true of today? Does $8920 a bar sound like too
>much? I've already considered that if I don't like the results I can always
>reduce the number of bars, but I'm trying to keep somewhat grounded to
>history.
>
>Aurė entuluva,
>Wes
>___
>When a man lies he murders part of the world
>
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