According to the World Gold Council 2712 tons of gold was consumed by the world in 2006. That is 867,840,000 ounces. Gold is currently selling for $1,000 an ounce. Ahhhhh, that is a lot of money. 

What does 2712 tons of gold look like? I have never seen even a couple pounds of gold so this should be interesting. Let’s see, a Boeing 747 ways about 200 tons empty. So, a fleet of about 14 747s would equal 2712 pounds of gold. Wow, gold is heavy and that doesn’t seem too startling to me. I wonder what else we can compare.

How about gold teeth? You know all that BLING! people are wearing in their month. I found out that approximately 1/10 ounce of gold is used to crown a single tooth. Now we’re talking! So, 2712 tons is 86,784,000 ounces so we times that by ten to get the number of teeth that can be crowned with the gold consumption of 2006. That is 867,840,000 teeth. Using this figure, on the average every man, women and child in the USA could get three teeth crowned with gold every year.

The problem is that with Gold selling for over $1,000 an ounce the crime rate would sky rocket. But, that’s another story.