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Although at one time Roman coins were literally worth their weight in gold, today copious search results illustrate the current overuse and hyperbole associated with this phrase. Many wonder if gold is even worth its weight in itself. Renowned expert on everything Mark Cuban says it isn't. The NY Times Magazine provides some additional perspective: "As miraculous
as gold is in itself...soft, dense...all but indestructible -- when you look at any quantity of it, you immediately exchange it in your head for something else. One bar, college education; 10 bars, Brooklyn town house." An ounce of the glittery substance will currently run you about $560. Personally, we'd rather spend that dough on a hundred propeller beanies. Though they will never increase in value, unlike gold, they do bestow the gift of flight. Here's a site
that calculates the value in gold of any weight. Run the poundage of some random stuff through the calculator; see if it measures up to its weight in gold. Is your half-pound remote worth the $4,419 it would take to buy a half pound of gold? What about a 10-pound cat, worth $88,384? And how do people measure up? A 170-pound individual made of gold pans out to $1,502,528. Is anybody worth that much? Gandhi: Yes. Carrot Top: Ask his mom. But if you think gold's overvalued, get a load of the price of diamonds. A good-quality, one-carat
diamond sells for about $5,000 -- that's roughly $710,000 per ounce. So there you go. Diamonds, at least, are worth way more than their weight in gold.
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