I recently picked up a few Utah Goldbacks and have been doing some research on these awesome notes so I thought I'd do a series of posts on these private issue barter notes and local Utah legal currency.
Let's start with this form the https://goldback.com/ FAQ.
The idea for this currency came after the passage of the Utah Legal Tender Act
Since that time the technology to mint gold into a spendable form for small transactions has come to fruition. Goldbacks may be used almost anywhere in the world for barter transactions. Goldback Inc. is using cutting edge vacuum deposition technology to circulate gold as it never has before. This technology was developed by Valaurum, Inc
Here is a short video about how they are made.
Valaurum, Inc was founded in Portland, OR in 2012 and the Aurum is their main product.
Here is a little more about the science of the Aurum form the Valaurum website:
Although it looks like a single sheet of pure gold, Aurum® Gold Notes are constructed as a precise layer of 24k gold sandwiched between layers of proprietary polymer substrate. The resulting gold film is highly durable and secure, and allows a precise quantity of gold to be packaged with bold art and 21st century security features.
The Aurum is manufactured with a thin film deposition method related to the manufacture of semiconductors. In a sealed vacuum chamber, a gold plate is bombarded with high energy ions. This creates a spray of vaporized gold that condenses and attaches to a polymer substrate. The gold film is laid down on the substrate effectively in atomic layers, resulting in a highly controllable deposition process.
This manufacturing process is completely different from traditional gold foil. Gold foils are beat by hand or milled in a rolling machine. Beating and milling lacks the uniformity of Valaurum’s processes. Gold foil is typically not recoverable. Valaurum’s processes also allow the integration of security features that are unthinkable in traditional gold foils.
As you can see in the video the design is printed on the polymer then the gold vapor(!) is sprayed on the polymer and vacuum sealed. Awesome!!
There are currently 5 denominations of Goldbacks, 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50 with each holding a small amount of physical gold, 1/1000oz, 1/200oz, 1/100oz, 1/40oz, and 1/20oz, respectively.
| GOLD | DENOMINATION |
|---|---|
 | 1 Goldback |
 | 5 Goldback |
 | 10 Goldback |
 | 25 Goldback |
 | 50 Goldback |
The value of each denomination is directly tied to the current spot price of gold using this calculation from https://goldback.com/exchange
The current exchange rate for 1 Goldback can be found at https://goldback.com/ as well.
8/9/2020
And you can see the APMEX markup is almost $2 per if you only want to get a couple :(
Hope this was an informative intro to the Utah Goldback. Stay tuned for the next installment when I'll talk about the history of how the Goldback came to be and the crypto tie-in to the Goldback project.
