Gold is the world's oldest international currency, having played a role in most countries' currency systems for well over two thousand years. Gold's scarcity, the fact that it does not corrode or tarnish, its malleability and status across civilisations have made it eminently suitable as a form of money.

Before 2000 BC agreed weights of gold (and silver), in various forms, were used to trade in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and China. Their use then increased around the Mediterranean. King Croesus minted the world’s first gold coins in 564 BC in Lydia (modern day Turkey) and other Mediterranean civilisations subsequently adopted the practice.

Gold coins often circulated far beyond their countries of origin; Roman gold coins were exchanged long after the fall of Rome itself. During the Middle Ages gold and silver continued to form the basis of currency systems in Europe, around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East. Gold was too valuable for most day-to-day transactions, but coins such as the Byzantine nomisma or bezant, the Islamic dinar and later the Venetian ducat, became widely used by merchants.

Over the centuries, specie money (made from metals where the value of the coin was essentially based on the value of the metal itself) was gradually superseded by specie-backed money.

The transition began with bankers' bills of exchange in the Middle Ages and moved on to state-issued token coinage or paper money in the 17th and 18th centuries. These bills of exchange and tokens were guarantees that the bearer could (at least notionally) exchange on demand for gold or silver. Gold, silver, or both, remained the basis of the monetary system.

Britain moved onto a de facto pure gold standard in 1717 - when the government linked the currency to gold at a fixed rate. While Britain moved onto a de jure gold standard in 1816, most countries remained on a silver or bimetallic system until around 1870, when the newly emerging Germany moved onto a gold system. By 1900 almost all major countries, China being a notable exception, were on a gold standard.