Hi Jens, That subject has come up here. I know you guys have much more experience in typing non-ASCII characters into computers (because I've set up computers for schools that teach Japanese), but as we cannot practically invent a new single or double byte character of a G with a line down the middle (the world has enough trouble with the Euro € symbol) many of us refer to the GAU (grams of AU, the chemical symbol for gold - it comes from the Latin "aurum", and we pronounce it "gow" to rhyme with "cow"), as a common unit of currency.
Centigrams do get used also, by using two decimal places much as we are used to referring to "cents" as one hundredth of a dollar. Note that the default payment in a "two cents worth" link is actually two centigrams! :) The only difference is that the gold cents are worth ten or more times what a US cent (or a yen) is. This is not so unreal to people my age who can think back two or three decades and think of what dollars and cents used to be worth! In summary, grams are convenient for everyday purchases, but ounces are excellent for big-ticket items. Grams have been espoused a lot amongst the people here, but I am well aware that most people think in terms of USD per troy ounce as is usually given in the mainstream financial news. I think that the per ounce 'gold price' in dollars is easier to follow, when tracking the movement of the dollar's value relative to gold than following the cents movement in the per gram gold price. Regards, Ian Green http://iangreen.2cw.org http://107242.e-gold.com/ --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
