Gold is a metal made for monetary service. It is scarce (just 0.004 parts per million in the earth's crust), pliable and easy on the eye. It has tended to hold its purchasing power over the years and centuries. You don't consume it, as you do tin or copper. Somewhere, probably, in some coin or ingot, is the gold that adorned Cleopatra.

And because it is indestructible, no one year's new production is of any great consequence in comparison with the store of above-ground metal. From 1900 to 2009, at much lower nominal gold prices than those prevailing today, the worldwide stock of gold grew at 1.5 percent a year, according to the United States Geological Survey and the World Gold Council.

The first time the United States abandoned the gold standard - to fight the Civil War - it took until 1879, 14 years after Appomattox, to again link the dollar to gold.

To reinstitute a modern gold standard today would take time, too. The United States would first have to call an international monetary conference. A chastened Ben Bernanke would have to announce that, in fact, he cannot see into the future and needs the information that the convertibility feature of a gold dollar would impart.

That humbling chore completed, the delegates could get down to the technical work of proposing a rate of exchange between gold and the dollar (probably it would be even higher than the current price of gold, the better to encourage new exploration and production).

Other countries, thunderstruck, would then have to follow suit. The main thing, Mr. Bernanke would emphasize, would be to create a monetary system that synchronizes national economies rather than driving them apart.

If the classical gold standard in its every Edwardian feature could not, after all, be teleported into the 21st century, there would be plenty of scope for adaptation and, perhaps, improvement. Let the author of "The Two-Period Rational Inattention Model: Accelerations and Analyses" have a crack at it.

David Fuller's view I have been a gold bull for the last decade while also maintaining that the USA, not to mention the rest of the world, will never move back to a gold standard. The idea has its appeal, especially for those of us who are revolted by the declining purchasing power of our paper currencies. Nevertheless, the reasons why we are very unlikely to see another gold standard are numerous.

This item continues in the Subscriber's Area and also discusses why calls for the return to a gold standard are beneficiary, even it there is little chance that it will ever happen. Briefly, here are some of them:

What worked in the 18th century and earlier, when there were fewer independent nations and the global population was tiny compared to its 6.7 billion and climbing inhabitants in 2010, would almost certainly not be practical or even feasible today.

To begin with, there is not enough gold and it is unevenly distributed. How many decimal points to the right would the price of gold have to move, to accommodate a gold standard for today's many sovereign nations? Such a price rise may be a pipe dream for some holders of bullion but it would also be destabilising if we think through the consequences.

Before establishing a new gold standard, many government officials would call for the confiscation of private holdings of bullion, and how would we like that? Rogue states would be tempted to manipulate the price of bullion, not least to weaken democracies.

Just as turkeys do not vote for Christmas, most governments would refuse to surrender their right to print money.

Nevertheless, the mere mention of some monetary role for gold by World Bank President Robert Zoellick (incorrectly described as a call for a new gold standard in some press reports) or respected independent financial commentators such as James Grant, send a message to the US Federal Reserve and other serial currency printers.

The international tide of both governmental and private opinion has turned against further quantitative easing. This should lower the risk of further competitive devaluations, at least for a while. My contention is supported by the recently firmer USD and Mr Bernanke's statement that economic recovery would strengthen fundamentals for the dollar. Here is the exact quote:

"The best fundamentals for the dollar will come when the economy is growing strongly," Bernanke said. "That's where the fundamentals come from."