Gold was considered trustworthy because it was rare. The earth's crust only contains a small amount of it. The attack that people were worried about was the government creating a whole bunch of currency and insisting that it was all valuable. They couldn't do that with gold, so gold was trusted.
> The attack that people were worried about was the government creating a whole bunch of currency and insisting that it was all valuable. They couldn't do that with gold, so gold was trusted.
I don't think this is accurate at all. Gold was valued as a trade good, and used to create majestic artworks. Government-created currency occurs a long time after gold becomes a major element of international trade. So, (1), the value of gold has nothing to do with a worry that the government will debase the currency.
(2), governments frequently did debase their currency, including gold-based currency. In the west, they did that by mixing precious metals with base metals and claiming the whole coin was pure precious metal. (Or, in the case of Croesus, by mixing precious silver with precious gold in a percentage that could be adjusted to meet current monetary needs.) In the east, they did it by issuing... paper currency. In general, governments were totally incapable of issuing fiat currency without issuing far too much and experiencing massive collapses in its value. But they still did it. Note that gold can be used to resist inflationary paper currency (though it wasn't), but it can't be used to resist debased coins that purport to be gold while actually being partly gold and partly lead. Such coins are a reason to distrust gold.
Gold was valued for its use in ornamentation. For example, we have correspondence between a Mesopotamian city-king and an Egyptian pharaoh; the king sends many letters expressing his need for unworked gold and hoping the pharaoh will let him know of a need -- any need -- of Egypt's that he might be able to satisfy.
In the end, he earns a tribute from Egypt by sending his daughter to marry the pharaoh. He receives several truckloads of gold -- but writes to express his disappointment that it has already been worked into statues.
So yes, you can use gold or you can spend it, but, like everything else, you can't do both.
