There have been attempts to fix the value of gold for currency purposes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Gold_Pool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Gold

There have been attempts to fix the value of gold for currency purposes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Gold_Pool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Gold_Pool but these tend to simply prove the silliness of bothering with commodities when fiat currency is inherently more elegant and functional.