excerpt:

MD: Payment in gold? What kind of nutjob town have I landed in?! I thought I was on the road to Kelowna! Isn’t there somebody here who will take payment in Canadian dollars?

John: In Kelowna they will, but you aren’t in Canada any more. Gilt’s Gulch lies on a spot of borderland that was accidentally left off the map many years ago. When President Nixon abandoned the gold standard in 1971, a number of people from around the world came here to participate in an economy based on real money.

MD: Why is a gold coin any more real than my paper money? Don’t they both have a picture of a queen on them?

John: The difference, sir, is that cash can be made for nothing. Its supply is only limited by the discipline of government officials – people who serve the whims of a mob. A gold coin, on the other hand, is different. It is minted from a scarce, sought-after metal which men have used to store value for thousands of years. Gold can’t be undone by a coup d’etat, can never be assassinated, and doesn’t need to run for re-election.

Link:

http://marketdepth.typepad.com/marketdepth/2010/02/journey-into-gilts-gulch.html