“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owner a counterfeit pile of paper.”

Although Ayn Rand's views may be an extreme version, there are enough goldbugs of varying degrees of intensity to have pushed both the price of gold and the tide of money flowing into gold investment products to notable highs.

“The most direct gold you can buy is coins or bars,” says Daniel Sacks, who manages Investec Asset Management's Global Gold and Precious Metals fund. “Coin purchases are picking up a lot.”