Gold has an additional bonus in being very resistant to oxidation or, well, pretty much anything it can be expected to encounter. A not insignificant property I

Gold has an additional bonus in being very resistant to oxidation or, well, pretty much anything it can be expected to encounter. A not insignificant property I would think. It's interesting to note that before modern manufacturing processes, Aluminum was also a very valuable metal. It had all sorts of desirable properties and manufacturing costs were so high that it was effectively rare. Cheap hydroelectricity and process scaling have taken care of that however.