Gold bullion has slowly but certainly become an ideal investment to have during hard economic times. It has been historically demonstrated that as inflation starts to increase mainstream investments like stocks, bonds and real estate generally fall, while precious metals increase in value because they're adverse to paper investments. For years, buying gold bullion was a luxury that only the really wealty or instiutional investors could afford. The cause, naturally, had to do with the sheer dollar cost for buying gold bars of assorted sizes and weights.