People buy gold to try to make money just like any other investment vehicle. If they think the price is going to go up, they but gold to hopefully profit. You can also do this with other metals such as silver and platinum.

Another reason someone might buy gold is because they are scared. If you are concerned the economy is going to tank and things in the world are going to get really bad, you might be one of the people who are thinking about buying gold.

You see, the historical cost of gold is such that you can always count on it to hold its value. Over the years, gold has never gone to zero and that is over a time span of thousands of years. If you are scared that things are going to get really dicey in the world, gold might be an investment that will make you sleep better at night.

You can invest in gold several ways; by acutally buying gold coins and gold bars or by buying ETF's (exchange traded funds) which go up and down with the price of gold.

Right now with the economy being so poor and the government is such debt, many people are wary of anything but the real thing. It is popular to be buying cold coins and putting them away in safe places rather than investing in stocks. This of course is a bit tedius but many people want to physically have the gold in their hands just in case things get really messy out in the real world.

Gold has always been valued by civilizations throughout the world all through time. This is what make gold such a safe investment and why people buy it for safety. Paper money is really just a piece of paper and if the government that prints the paper money doesn't back it's value, then the money is worthless.

Likewise stocks are nothing more than ownership in something that can go to zero real quickly as we have seen with Enron and a few others. Rather than looking for the best stocks to buy right now in hopes they will go up, some people prefer to buy gold and feel safe.

In the end, paper money is really only a piece of paper that is totally worthless in worst case world scenarios. But since gold has always been sought out and valued, it will always have value no matter what bad things are happening in the world.

As an example you can see the obvious high value of gold the ancient Egyptians placed on it. Still today we are uncovering new tombs that have important people buried with their gold and they were buried thousands of years ago.

The historical cost of gold has fluctuated but it has never gone to zero and most likely never will. This leads some investors who want the ultimate safety in case of bad times to invest in gold buy buying gold coins, ETF's, or gold stocks. You can buy gold in all these ways online if you choose or you can find gold brokers. Of course their are also many people who buy both gold and silver because they are speculating that it's price will rise.