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

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.

Where does the word gold come from?
The word gold appears to be derived from the Indo-European root ‘yellow’, reflecting one of the most obvious properties of gold. This is reflected in the similarities of the word gold in various languages: Gold (English), Gold(German), Guld (Danish), Gulden (Dutch), Goud (Afrikaans), Gull (Norwegian) and Kulta (Finnish).

How much gold is there in the world?
The World Gold Council estimates that at the end of 2001, it is estimated that all the gold ever mined amounted to about 145,000 tonnes.

Who owns most gold?
If we take national gold reserves, then most gold is owned by the USA followed by Germany and the IMF. If we include jewellery ownership, then India is the largest repository of gold in terms of total gold within the national boundaries. In terms of personal ownership, it is not known who owns the most, but is possibly a member of a ruling royal family in the East.

If gold is laid around the world, how far would it stretch?
If we make all the gold ever produced into a thin wire of 5 microns (millionths of a metre) diameter – the finest one can draw a gold wire, then all the gold would stretch around the circumference of the world an astounding 7.2 million times approximately!

Why is gold measured in carats?
This stems back to ancient times in the Mediterranean /Middle East, when a carat became used as a measure of the purity of gold alloys (see next Question 5). The purity of gold is now measured also in terms if fineness, i.e parts per thousand. Thus 18 carats is 18/24th of 1000 parts = 750 fineness.

What is Carat?
A Carat (Karat in USA & Germany) was originally a unit of mass (weight) based on the Carob seed or bean used by ancient merchants in the Middle East. The Carob seed is from the Carob or locust bean tree. The carat is still used as such for the weight of gem stones (1 carat is about 200 mg). For gold, it has come to be used for measuring the purity of gold where pure gold is defined as 24 carats.

How does a gold mine work?
The gold-containing ore has to be dug from the surface or blasted from the rock face underground. This is then hauled to the surface and milled to release the gold. The gold is then separated from the rock (gangue) by techniques such as flotation, smelted to a gold-rich doré and cast into bars. These are then refined to gold bars by the Miller chlorination process to a purity of 99.5%. If higher purity is needed or platinum group metal contaminants are present, this gold is further refined by the Wohlwill electrlytic process to 99.9% purity.

What happens to gold after it is mined?
The ore is normally sent to a refinery, which will extract and melt down the gold into a pure 24ct form, normally as bars or ingots.

How big is a tonne of gold?
Gold is traditionally weighed in Troy Ounces (31.1035 grammes). With the density of gold at 19.32 g/cm3, a troy ounce of gold would have a volume of 1.61 cm3. A metric tonne (equals 1,000kg = 32,150.72 troy ounces) of gold would therefore have a volume of 51,762 cm3 (i.e. 1.61 x 32,150.72), which would be equivalent to a cube of side 37.27cm (Approx. 1′ 3”).

What percentage of gold is used in jewellery, industry and investment?
Around 70% of gold demand is jewellery, 11% is industrial (dental, electronics) and 13% is investment (institutional and individual, bars & coins). Gold jewellery has strong “investment” attributes in all countries, and in markets such as India and Middle East is sold by weight at the prevailing daily rate with a supplementary “making charge” which varies according to the complexity of the piece.

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.