Have you bought any gold lately?

I have, and at really exorbitant prices. I have bought some at US$1500 and some at US$1600 an once. I wish I had bought at US$700 but that wasn't too long ago. Where is the price of gold heading? Who knows? Every one and every country seem to be buying gold these days. Gold, traditionally has been an investment tool for peasants all over the world. It wasn't fashionable in the US because we had other easier investment tools like stocks, bonds and real estate. But all these tools have lost their luster, real estate prices are way down, the stock market and the bond market have also gone down and the buying power of the US dollar has vanished. This leaves gold as the only viable alternative though some people are touting silver. I remember when I was little, my parents bought gold when they had money which would then be sold at the pawn shop when times were bad. Lately I began exploring that option, of putting away some money into gold.
I am lucky because I work in the wholesale jewellery market in Los Angeles and there are goldsmiths all around me. I walked into a few to inquire about buying gold coins, they told me that don't have any but some of their other fellow goldsmiths might have some. I couldn't find any US mint coins nor Credit Suisse gold coins but I did manage to buy some Canadian Maple leaf, some Chinese coins and a Krugerrand. The Jeweller asked me if I knew how much an ounce of gold weighs, in my Science classes, an ounce weighs about 28 grams. An ounce of gold or a troy ounce of gold weighs 31.1 grams!
When I was buying gold, a shopper came with some of his gold jewellery which he sold to the goldsmith who paid him US4500 for the whole lot. So gold is very liquid. You can use it as money. I watched a YouTube video, this shopper went in to a buy some suits from a store, the store owner accepted his gold jewellery, even gave change on it!
Have you bought any gold lately? It's becoming too expensive but the US mint makes smaller denomination gold coins. Check out this website http://www.goldsilver.com They sell gold through the mail and they have incredible articles on why we need to buy gold. I check this site everyday for the spot price for gold. They don't pay me to write this.