Why would anyone in the fallout universe buy a gold bar

[_Cake_]

It's rare and famous. Heck if came across a merchant selling a gold bar for 5000-10000 caps I would buy it and I put it on the shelf above my snow globes with my Golden Gloves and a Golden Gecko Egg. Actually that's what I'm going to do when I'm done the DLC XD

 

[jpoon]

Gold will always retain a lot of value.

 

[MrGamer]

The NCR Economy is Gold backed. That's why gold holds value in NCR Merchants or those that do dealings with them.

 

[xXGeckoXx]

Also to the people saying it is valuable because gold is used in tech. Well you will need a foundry and a processing plant to turn that gold into parts necessary for your electronics. Places like that aren't exactly down the street in post apocalyptic america.

Those traders likely know people, they get supplied tech, they likely have contacts who know how to use the resources.

As with all rare mostly useless comodities ( the technological ones are not apliccable) the merchants via the hub control the value. They say it's worth ten grand. It's worth ten grand and it is too rare to be affected by inflation. So basically the trader realised that this is rare enough to be a reliable currency and assigned it a large arbitrary nukmber. Thye qualities of this currency are being impervious to inflation and allowing the hub to further control the value of caps.

yeah, but gold is rare and has always been expensive. some merchants or, more likely, scavenger would want it..

Would they pay the 10,750 caps it is worth on the off chance that a collector might one day come around and purchase it.

10,750 caps is a lot of money.

 

[andy25100]

The NCR Economy is Gold backed. That's why gold holds value in NCR Merchants or those that do dealings with them.

it was, for the reason gold is valuable it was a target for the BoS since they destroyed the gold reserves meaning they either use/d gold for currency or that they know its value so they are keeping it for when they can use it

 

[crobulator]

The real question is, why use bottle caps as money? How difficult is it for someone to make a bottle cap factory even in a post apocalyptic wasteland? There's no long term value in them at all.

You see, this is the problem with people coming into the Fallout universe without knowing the lore, as well as Bethesda's problem for not explaining the elements of the universe.

Bottle caps were first found in the original Fallout. The reason that they were considered as currency is because they were stamped and backed by the water merchants in The Hub. When it became possible to produce metal coinage again, they changed to that, leaving bottle caps to become worthless again, as we see in Fallout 2. Indeed, there's a playful allusion to this in one of the quests in Broken Hills, where somebody claims to have a fortune hidden somewhere in the town, and when you find it, it's a collection of 10,000 bottle caps - which would have bought you a suit of Combat Armor, along with a decent weapon and some ammunition in the first game, but which is worthless in the second.

I remember that i think i raged about it still bugs people banging on about fallout without having even tried the first two. OTit wouldbe as previously said be valuable to people like the brotherhood as a conductor or even NCR or vault city fro mostly the same reasons gangsters in places like gizmo in junktown in fallout one would use it as a status symbol etc etc

 

[Altorin]

don't you know? Caps follow the gold standard.

 

[mattttherman3]

Man, I could only take 2 bars, 35wg a piece, not like it matters, level 27 man here. Would be a better vault if it had like 50 mini nukes. Use it as a nice club, put it on the end of a hammer.

 

[SimuLord]

If people still respected gold, then yeah. But as caps are the agreed upon currency, and there don't appear to be any jewellers in sight, there wouldn't be too much use for gold. Well, actually - if you wanted to repair electronic items, gold would be useful. Certain insulating material uses gold. Gold doesn't tarnish.

But yeah, pretty much the only reason Gold is as important as it is today is due to the perception of it as a valuable material. It's all shiny and doesn't dull and people like to wear it and stuff. It does have some applications, but platinum and other alloys have MORE applications and might even be rarer.

Consider Legion currency. They use the silver denarius and gold aureus and in the world of Fallout the precious metals are respected (far more than caps and MUCH more than worthless NCR money). If you've got a gold bar, you can coin money, and currency is just as useful a means of exchange in post-apocalyptic society as Pre-War society.

After all, if you've stamped out a coin of gold that weighs the same as a Legion aureus, do you think people care about its origin or are you going to get a hundred caps for it?