I always preferred silver as well—stainless steel appliances, white gold wedding band etc. But I just visited my brother who has done his kitchen in dark green and brass, and I think I finally see the appeal.
It's not just pretty, it's also useful. Going back a couple centuries, there weren't many materials that were rust resistant and as malleable as gold. That combined with the aesthetic possibilities, and the fact that's rare and difficult to obtain, is what made it valuable.
You missed the coolest aspect, it doesn’t oxidize! To me that’s ridiculously cool. Also why it’s used for extremely important circuitry and such. Silver/platinum colored stuff looks better though
No. Not at all. It looks tacky and people that flaunt it are usually fake-rich. I don't mind spending money on quality things, but Gold does nothing for me.
I know I don't. I think gold looks incredibly tacky on me, so the only metals I wear are silver, steel, or titanium. I know a few people that adore the color of gold, or like rose gold, but value doesn't mean anything to a person like me if they despise the way gold looks. There's just something incredibly timeless about the silvery color metals that gold just doesn't have I believe.
I consider myself a people, and I prefer my body jewelry to be gold if I can afford it. A few pieces are gold-colored anodized titanium (which are fading), but very prominent pieces are solid gold. I like yellow gold, not rose gold. I actually think titanium/"silver" looks more tacky than gold.
But that's just for pieces of jewelry that go into my body. For bracelets and such, I prefer brass, leather, and shades of brown. I don't wear necklaces.
It's been valued for so long it would be hard to separate from aesthetics. Like, it's pretty much as old as metalworking in general.
Consider how you'd feel about a blue-coloured metal. I think that would be neat, but it doesn't have the "classy" feel that gold does, and that has to be cultural.
I disliked gold, and preferred silver, until I got older. I'm convinced it's social programming, in my case. I learned to like gold, because of decades of being told how valuable gold is.
Why do I like deep blue? Why does anyone like any color? There's probably some evolved reason for those preferences; for instance, many creatures are attracted to shiny things.
In any case, I'm also interested in any scientific answer you get, but I wanted to put out there that I have annecdotal evidence that there's a lot of learned (nurture) preference, combined with some evolved preference (shiny, nature).
I never did really, until a few weeks ago I found a gold bracelet type thing outside and wore it for a while. It's not 100% my style but now I'm considering getting something else like it. It's very thin which might help, maybe that makes it look nice but not too flashy.
I think it's OK/good-looking on certain things. Maybe just because it's a shiny pretty metal. But somehow, I don't seem to own anything in shiny gold color.
Value is just a measurement of how much someone is willing to pay for something, and people in general are willing to pay more for things that they like. I really don't think it's possible to separate value from the equation here.