Recently, in order to get through a sensitive metal detector, with some pain and effort I removed my wedding band. I hadn't had it off in years. I later had it resized and polished, and was quite surprised how nice it looked. It all reminded me of an old gold mine that I grew up near. Let me explain.
Rings have a long history, often used to signify power and status, and more recently, achievements and love. Not one to care much about marking myself with symbols, I tried to pass on a wedding ring. My wife convinced me otherwise.
Researching rings, I learned that I could have our rings made using gold that had just recently been mined and processed from the Ropes Gold Mine. This is the old mine just a few miles from the house I grew up in in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The mine had recently reopened. I ordered two rings. We both have our rings. And each other. And three boys. And four grandchildren.
I recently saw an ad pushing the sale of gold. Yes, it's climbed a lot lately, up nearly 7 times in the past 20 years. Note, though, that in the same period the S&P 500 index is up five times (excluding dividends). In recent years, gold has not been a bad investment but history suggests it's not what it's said to be.
Back to our rings. When I was a kid, we occasionally brought our garbage to an open dump that was on the same gravel road as the old Ropes Gold Mine. There was a small sign recognizing this mine from the 19th century. It had been closed for decades.
The Upper Peninsula is known for its iron ore mining, which has been mined continuously since it was first discovered in 1844. Copper was once a big industry, too. But there were also over a dozen gold mines in the area.
The Ropes Gold Mine was the most notable of these gold mines. It was started by Julius Ropes, a chemist from Vermont who had searched for gold and silver on the west coast and in the south. In 1862, at age 27, he came to the Upper Peninsula working for a local druggist. Mining had already been active in the area for years.
Mr. Ropes married a local girl, settled in my hometown, Ishpeming, Michigan, had four children and eventually opened a drugstore. He was very involved in the city, becoming postmaster and a school board member. They lived in a house just a few blocks from the family home my great-grandfather bought about the same time, a home both my grandfather and dad grew up in.
Mr. Ropes continued his prospecting for gold and silver, and eventually discovered both in what became the Ropes Gold Mine organized by him in 1881. Mining began shortly afterwards.
It continued operations for fifteen years until it was closed due to financial difficulties. It produced $645,792 worth of gold, worth about $90 million today.
Note, though, that had this same amount of money been invested in the S&P 500, it would be worth tens of billions of dollars today. During this time, after accounting for inflation, gold went up about 4 times while the S&P 500 went up over 2000 times. Ok, enough of this. But I will carry this point out later to show just how bad of an investment gold is.
The Ropes Gold Mine remained closed for most of the 20th century. I remember as a kid walking through the mine ruins many times, looking through the history that sat overgrown with trees. Mounds of ore and equipment lay about, the former obscured by brush, the latter more rusted with each passing year.
Gravel roads eroded into trails, now as frequented by deer as man. But gold won't rust or be washed away, and beneath 100 years of shrubbery, it still coursed through the land's veins.
During these years the Ropes Gold Mine changed hands several times. As is usually the case, finances and investing were the drivers.
The big breakthrough came in the 1970s. Gold prices spiked, going up nearly 15 times while the S&P 500 about doubled (including dividends). Callahan Mining Corporation bought the mine and reopened it in 1983. They ran it again for nearly ten years when it again closed primarily due to the rising cost of operating the mine while the price of gold fell. It’s during this second run of the Ropes Gold Mine that I bought our wedding rings.
Our marriage has been very good. But as an investment, the gold in our rings didn’t do so well. When I had my ring resized, I asked for an estimate on what it is worth. They said it was worth about $1100, three or four times what I paid for it nearly forty years ago. How does that compare with the S&P 500? Including dividends, that same money would be worth $18,000 today, more than ten times what the gold is worth.
Gold has a long history going back thousands of years. There's a reason it is considered a timeless item with an inherent value. But gold doesn't do much other than make nice jewelry. Although it's backed by more than crypto currency, it’s not by much. They both are mostly only worth what someone else will give you for it. It's the same with most commodities. But in this case, there's emotion and history, unlike natural gas or wheat.
That's quite different from money invested in companies. Almost all stocks are backed by companies with products and facilities, with many paying dividends. There's not a lot of emotion to Proctor & Gamble or Apple Computers or Ford Motor. Nothing to share at a wedding or to carry on your finger for decades.
But from a cold financial perspective, these companies make and sell things that people want, and as an investment they lap gold again and again.
By how much? According to Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Siegel, after accounting for dividends and inflation, the S&P 500 has averaged nearly 7% a year return since 1800, rising over 23 times in this period. During the same time, gold has averaged less than one percent a year, rising only 4 times after inflation.
Yes, gold occasionally goes up fast as it did in the 1970s and as it has again this century. But from 1980 to 2000, it hardly moved while stocks went up by multiples. And even in this century, gold hasn't done much more than keep up with stocks.
They claim gold is a hedge against inflation. Maybe and sometimes. It worked in the 1970s. But, no, it doesn't normally track with inflation any more than bonds or stocks.
Gold is wonderful. I like my ring. I like its history, both through ancient times and into the Ropes Gold Mine. I like what it symbolizes.
But an investment? No. If you own the actual gold, you have to store and secure it. If you buy it electronically, whether directly or through a fund, you're open to all the same issues that come with trusting others' commitments to you.
People rarely do well with gold. But in the long run, buying and holding stocks, whether individually or in low-cost funds, it is hard to lose. At the same time, love, history and sentiment can’t be measured purely in financial terms. I’m still glad that I have my wedding ring.