Gold, the Bond villain of asset classes, enjoys tormenting those in its thrall. These days, that group includes a large and growing part of what's left of the world's private investors. The institutional investing world is still hesitant, perhaps because, though the managers are tempted, they have got every change of course wrong in recent years.

So the Indian brides who used to keep up the demand side have been pushed aside by paranoid Middle Americans willing to pay $20 or $30 an ounce premiums for ordinary Krugerrand coins. Even now, months after the Lehman bankruptcy, with trillions of government money supporting the banking system, there are a lot of members of the public who seem to think they better start hoarding if they want to buy bread in the coming months.