The London bullion market has published a gold price twice a day since 1968, and 14,657 of those fixes are free to read. On 2026-08-07 the afternoon fix was $4,335.55 an ounce. That is 19.8 percent below the highest fix in the whole series, $5,405.00, which was set on 2026-01-29, earlier the same year.
What this series is, and what it is not
The figures here are the LBMA afternoon gold price, published by the LBMA and read as JSON on 5 August 2026. It is a benchmark fix rather than a market average: it is the price at which the auction balances at a set time each afternoon, in US dollars per troy ounce, and it is the reference most contracts and most published gold figures ultimately point at. The series runs from 1968-04-01, when the fix was $37.70, to 2026-08-07.
It is not a retail price. Nobody buys an ounce of gold at the fix: a coin or a small bar carries a premium over it, and selling carries a spread the other way. This publication uses the fix because it is the one gold number that is published, dated and free, and identical for everybody, which is exactly what a reference price should be.
What the same money buys, measured in gold
A pre-owned Rolex Submariner asks a median $15,495 on 5 August 2026, read from Bob’s Watches. At 2026-08-07’s fix that is 3.57 ounces of gold. The table below shows what that identical dollar figure would have bought at the end of each of the years listed.
| Year | Gold, afternoon fix | What $15,495 buys | Fix date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | $41.90 | 369.81 oz | 1968-12-31 |
| 1975 | $140.25 | 110.48 oz | 1975-12-31 |
| 1980 | $589.75 | 26.27 oz | 1980-12-30 |
| 1990 | $386.20 | 40.12 oz | 1990-12-28 |
| 2000 | $274.45 | 56.46 oz | 2000-12-28 |
| 2008 | $869.75 | 17.82 oz | 2008-12-30 |
| 2011 | $1,531.00 | 10.12 oz | 2011-12-29 |
| 2015 | $1,060.00 | 14.62 oz | 2015-12-30 |
| 2020 | $1,887.60 | 8.21 oz | 2020-12-30 |
| 2024 | $2,609.10 | 5.94 oz | 2024-12-30 |
| 2026 | $4,335.55 | 3.57 oz | 2026-08-07 |
Read that column carefully, because it is about the dollar
The third column falls from hundreds of ounces to a few, and it is tempting to read that as a statement about watches. It is not. This publication holds no historical Rolex prices, only today’s asking prices, so nothing here says what a Submariner cost in 1968 or in 2000. What the column measures is the purchasing power of a fixed number of dollars against one asset that has been continuously priced since 1968. The watch figure is a constant in that calculation, held at $15,495 throughout, precisely so that the only thing moving is the gold price.
That distinction is the reason this desk publishes the gold series at all. Every price it prints, on watches, cars, boats and houses, is a price in money, and money is not a fixed rule. Having one long, free, dated series to measure against is what makes the other numbers legible over time.
Gold is below its own high, and the high is recent
The highest afternoon fix in the whole 1968 to 2026 series is $5,405.00, set on 2026-01-29. The fix on 2026-08-07 was $4,335.55, which is 19.8 percent below it. Both figures are from the same source and the same series, so the comparison needs no adjustment. A reader meeting a headline about gold rising or falling can check it against these two numbers rather than against a percentage with no denominator attached.
This piece is part of our watches reference, What a Luxury Watch Costs to Own: Prices, Depth and the Conflict in Every Source, which sets out the method and collects every figure we have published on the subject. Also in it: A Median Breitling Asks $4,795. A Median Audemars Piguet Asks $39,245. Six Swiss Brands, Priced., What a Pre-Owned Rolex Costs, by Family: $7,595 to $40,495, The Best Rolex for Boating Is Not the Yacht-Master. It Asks $2,500 More for a Third of the Depth., Five Swiss Watches Ask Under $10,000. The Cheapest Is a Third of a Submariner., A Rolex Submariner Costs 3.57 Ounces of Gold Today. A Daytona Costs 9.34..
Sources
Every gold figure on this page is the LBMA afternoon gold price in US dollars per troy ounce, published by the LBMA and read directly from its public JSON feed on 5 August 2026. The series contains 14,657 fixes running from 1968-04-01 to 2026-08-07. No figure here is interpolated, smoothed or adjusted for inflation, and the build refetches the feed on every run and stops if the series no longer reaches the current year.
The Rolex Submariner figure is a median pre-owned asking price of $15,495 read from Bob’s Watches on 5 August 2026. It is an ask rather than a sale, and the source is a dealer holding the stock it prices, which this desk states on every watch piece. The ounce conversions in the third column are our own arithmetic on the two published numbers. Gold is quoted per troy ounce, which is about 31.10 grams and is not the same as the ounce used for everything else.
Frequently asked questions
What is the gold price today?
The LBMA afternoon fix on 2026-08-07 was $4,335.55 per troy ounce, read directly from the LBMA’s public feed. That is 19.8 percent below the highest fix in the series, $5,405.00 on 2026-01-29. The fix is a benchmark rather than a retail price: a coin or a small bar trades at a premium to it, and selling carries a spread the other way.
How far back does a reliable gold price go?
The LBMA publishes 14,657 afternoon fixes running from 1968-04-01, when gold fixed at $37.70 an ounce, to 2026-08-07. It is free, machine-readable and dated, which is why this publication uses it as its reference series rather than a chart from a dealer or a broker.
How many ounces of gold does a Rolex cost?
A Submariner asking a median $15,495 on 5 August 2026 is 3.57 ounces at that day’s fix of $4,335.55. That ratio moves with the gold price and with the watch market independently, so it is a snapshot rather than a rate. This page does not claim what a Submariner cost in any earlier year, because this desk holds no historical watch prices.