I don't doubt what you say regarding worn personal jewellery. But I did not say jewellery, much less personal jewellery, I said jewellery, coinage and gold bars (not just jewellery).
Also I am using "jewellery" in a broad (and inaccurate) sense, as tends to be used in statistical compilations - it includes any ornate or artistic object d'art such as crowns, gold clocks, religious staues etc. I imagine the majority of Australians would have not more than a couple of ounces of gold that they wear on a REGULAR basis though, perhaps 30 plus million ounces for Australia at present. I have seen single solid-gold buddhas (not gold leaf) that would hardly rate a mention in tourist brochures, that are made of half a million ounces of gold.
You assume that most jewellery is used enough to wear significantly (that worn will certainly wear - although the ring I have been wearing for 42 years would not have lost 10% from its outer surface, virtually nothing from inner surface where it is inscribed -as is common with hallmarks. ). And it is 18ct (75% gold) - a lot of jewellery is 9 ct (37.5% gold). so it is not pure gold being lost. However a major proportion of world personal jewellery is in dowries etc in places like the Middle East and India, and most people with a lot more than a wedding ring or gold chain do not wear any other of their jewellery a major part of the time. I estimate that my wife and I wear perhaps 0.5% of the gold we own as personal jewellery, a few percent is inherited family jewellery (that I have never seen worn), 10% we have as mint coins that we don't handle, and the rest in a single art object (and we are middle-class Australians not oil sheiks).
As I said, the main losses are probably in electronics, colouring for glass, and gold leaf, but they are only a small percentage of gold uses. Only 75% of world gold demand comes from gold mines each year (e.g. 3,500 tonnes), and most of the balance is recycled gold. The majority of recycled gold - around 90% - comes from jewellery, with gold extracted from technology providing the remaining 10%. No other metal has always been re-cycled throughout history in the way gold has - people don't discard it.
So only a small amount of gold is lost, most ever mined is in circulation, and the "so-called experts" are probably correct on this one.
However the topic was the price of precious metals, so we are getting off topic.
