The weird, wild story of humanity’s obsession with gold
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Culture | Worth its weight<br>The weird, wild story of humanity’s obsession with gold<br>A new book charts the gilded history of an ancient asset<br>Share
Photograph: Pascal Maitre/ Panos Pictures
May 14th 2026|4 min read
In the 1980s Lloyd Blankfein, the future boss of Goldman Sachs but then a rookie gold trader, bought a kilogram of the metal for himself. He describes this in “Streetwise”, his memoir, as less an investment than a conversation piece—albeit one that cost around $15,000 ($50,000 today). When he handed it round at dinner parties, he found it better at prompting awe than speech. “People would become slightly mesmerised,” he writes. “No one ever wanted to let go of it.”
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Worth its weight”
From the May 16th 2026 edition<br>Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents<br>⇒Explore the edition
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