The term ‘money’ is always associated with notes and coins, but such is not the case when it comes to the traditional side of Solomon Islands.

Solomon Times sat with John Dioko from Simbo in the Western Province who explained the significance of the ‘bokolo’ in their society.

“The bokolo is a form of money which our people use to pay for bride price, buy land, tribal reconciliation and compensation,” he said.

Bokolo is made of clam shell and “normally, collectors from overseas are the main people to buy this artifact because of its uniqueness.”

“One very interesting thing about the bokolo is that it is not made out of wood but from a sea shell, and it’s very rare to find people who know how to make it,” said Mr. Dioko.

Solomon Times learnt that one bokolo is worth SBD$5,000 and according to Mr. Dioko, “some of the museum in the world really want it.”

Asked on its history, Mr. Dioko said that their ancestors used the bokolo as their defender.

“The ancestors would chant sacred songs so that whatever plans they make, they have to be strong,” he added.

Solomon Times understands that there are special artifacts in the country which are still forbidden to be showcased publicly, but there are revived ones that can be exported overseas, and one of them is bokolo. Read Full Story

What is gold?
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from the Latin aurum, meaning shining dawn) and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal which, for many centuries, has been used as money, a store of value and in jewelry. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks, underground “veins” and in alluvial deposits. It is one of the coinage metals. Gold is dense, soft, shiny and the most malleable and ductile of the known metals. Pure gold has a bright yellow color traditionally considered attractive.

Gold forms the basis for a monetary standard used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The ISO currency code of gold bullion is XAU. Modern industrial uses include dentistry and electronics, where gold has traditionally found use because of its good resistance to oxidative corrosion.

Chemically, gold is a trivalent and univalent transition metal. Gold does not react with most chemicals, but is attacked by chlorine, fluorine, aqua regia and cyanide. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but does not react with it. Gold is insoluble in nitric acid, which will dissolve silver and base metals, and this is the basis of the gold refining technique known as “inquartation and parting”. Nitric acid has long been used to confirm the presence of gold in items, and this is the origin of the colloquial term “acid test,” referring to a gold standard test for genuine value. (more…)

Gold has always held a special allure and fascination in peoples minds. Perhaps it is the color, weight, or the fact that over time it has come to symbolize an elemental resource for value and wealth. Whatever the reason, I wanted to see if there were any estimates as to the total amount of gold we humans have laid out hands on.

After a small bit of research on the World Gold Council website, I saw an estimate which pegged the total amount of mined gold from ancient times to the present, calculated at 158,000 tonnes.

A big number but one that is a bit hard to get your mind around. What does on tonne of gold look like. Lets do a little math.

If the estimates are correct and there has  been 158,000 tones of gold recovered from “Mother Earth” (assuming 24 K purity) then that would translate into 5,079,817,925 troy oz. of the precious metal. However unless you are Bill Gates or one of the other billionaires on the planet, I still have a hard time grasping what over 5 billion ounces of gold would look like. Back to the calculator.

If a cubic centimeter of 24K gold equals 19.3 grams, then a cubic meter of gold would weight 19.3 tonnes. Likewise all the gold ever mined would amount to 8,187 cubic meters. That still doesn’t mean anything to me.

I have to put that into perspective and visualize what that much gold would look like. So , if all the gold in the world would fit into a 20.15 meter cube, or 66 feet 1.3 inches square,  that would kind of  be the size of a small office building.  Now that I can understand.