You answered your own question:
“The amount of gold backing the currency DOES NOT MATTER.”
Priceless is the same as worthless.
Gold only has value to those that value gold. Because there is so little of it in the world, it is no different than baseball trading cards: of great value to those who collect it and trade it, but of no value to those who don’t.
Try this experiment. Go to a grocery store and fill that cart up. Then offer gold as payment to the cashier. Since they have no way of converting it, ask the manager to do so. He will have no way of converting it either.
“Sorry, Mac. Cash, credit, debit or check only.”
“But don’t you *understand*??? This is GOLD!”
“Sorry, Mac. Cash, credit, debit or check only.”
When money is worthless, as it has been in so many countries and is now in quite a few, gold does become desirable.
I am amazed at those who say it has no worth because you can’t eat it when our country required that the currency be coin for many many years.
Since Biblical times, gold has been sought after.
What was the California gold rush all about?
That's true, of course. But you miss the point of a properly gold-backed currency. It limits the amount of paper dollars that can be printed.
That's the point.