These charts summarize gold's impressive performance during the tumultuous first fourteen years of the 21st century. Investors fearing some future Black Monday, a general bank or currency collapse, a 1930s-style economic depression, or a sudden and virulent inflation took precautions by purchasing gold coins and bullion as a form of portfolio insurance. Gold Chartography 101 is a record of that past. At the same time, though, it could very well be a glimpse of the future.