The USA Gold Trail
When I first started this blog in 2008 I was a silver stacker, and an enthusiastic student of all things related to the history of gold, silver, and money. Somehow I came across the FOFOA blog as well as writings of Michael Kosares, FOFOA, and A/FOA. While I don't remember the details of how I found those sources, I do remember finding a wealth of old world wisdom.
This was a period of my life where I was in my early 20's and studying all things not taught in public school or Universities. The Gold Trail and FOFOA was foundational to my thinking on value, economics, and impacts my judgement 15y later.
What follows are the links to the original sources, and PDFs that form the core material of that journey.
Tom Lobsiger
Here is a link to a 420 page compendium of all of their writings put together by Ron Mullis. He has an old little blog called The Matrix Sentry. It reminds me a lot of this website!
Tom Lobsiger
Here is a link to FOFOA, where the writings of pseudo-anons A/FOA were further dissected by their contemporary FOFOA. It is a long-form, pseudonymous blog focused on gold, money, and the failure modes of modern fiat currency systems, written primarily between roughly 2008–2014. It is not a news site or investment blog in the conventional sense. It’s a theoretical framework for understanding what happens to money when confidence collapses.
In 2019, In Gold We Trust (IGWT), did an interview with Friend of Friend of Another, (FOFOA). Both of these individuals, IGWT's Ronald-Peter Stoeferle, and FOFOA are heavy-weights when it comes to gold's monetary history. This interview is a fascinating insight into old world views on gold, money, and our modern monetary system.
Tom Lobsiger
“Old world, gold economy, as viewed thru modern eyes or way to move from US-Dollar without war.” – Another
"Almost exactly 20 years ago an anonymous writer who called himself “Another” appeared on the biggest Gold discussion board the young internet knew at that time. He seemed to be an insider with deep knowledge of history, politics and economics. He would write for many years and had an heir, called “Friend of Another” who took the torch once Another himself “retired”. To this day we don't know who Another was, where he got his information and why he chose to share it with the world. But we do know one thing: Some (not all) of his sometimes outlandish predictions did turn out to be true.
The body of their work stretches from the Bretton Woods Deal to the Nixon-Shock and the introduction of the Euro. It represents one of the most fascinating perspectives of the role of Gold in the current and future monetary systems. It also makes a compelling case for a much, much higher price of Gold." – Ronald-Peter Stoeferle
I was fortunate enough to have read FOFOA when he was still publishing free articles to the blog. And before the good stuff went behind the paywall. I've never been a paid subscriber there, so cannot speak to the value of the paid service. However, between the Gold Trail Archives and the FOFOA's public posts, there is an entire body of work that is accessible to the public, to anyone with an interest in exploring monetary history from through an old world perspective.
At its core, FOFOA explores one central idea:
Gold is not an investment, a commodity, or a hedge — it is the final settlement asset that reasserts itself when currency systems fail.
Everything else on the blog flows from that premise.
