The big bankers on Wall Street spend their days interrogating algorithms as intricate as a charade. Global financial strategists chase artificial intelligence, supercomputers and mysterious market movements. To power his gigantic data centers, Jeff Bezos even goes hunting for copper underground in Arizona, with the spirit of a Klondike gold prospector wearing the helmet of a technological entrepreneur. In Italy, however, the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, the one that preserves the country’s wealth, is within reach. You don’t need to dig mountains, you don’t need drills, you don’t even need an ultra-fast internet connection. Just open the dresser drawer.
Yes, exactly that. The sacred place where mismatched socks, old supermarket receipts, faded photographs and, often, a small forgotten heritage coexist: the grandmother’s necklace, the baptism bracelet, the brooch given by the aunt, the ring preserved in a velvet box now worn out by time. A treasure which according to estimates, the reliability of which is difficult to verify, could be worth 150 billion.
For years we looked at him with a mixture of tenderness and sufficiency. Objects from the past, memories of an Italy made up of family ceremonies, communions, confirmations and weddings. Grandpa stuff, we thought. A bit like the doilies on the television and the wedding favors with the music box. Then the gold market came to remind us of a truth: the yellow metal has a much longer memory than ours.
At the beginning of the year, gold touched unthinkable levels, exceeding 5,500 dollars an ounce. Silver also experienced an extraordinary run, reaching above 116 dollars. Now the wind has changed: gold has fallen to around 4,100 dollars an ounce and silver has plummeted towards 61 dollars. An important slowdown, but not enough to erase an impressive growth story. Because ten years ago the yellow metal was trading around 30-32 euros per gram. Today we are around 116 euros per gram for the pure one.
In short, that hair-thin chain that seemed like a gift of no great importance could today have a value capable of paying a few bills or a few tanks of petrol. In short, the aunt with the white hair and the impeccable skirt perhaps had understood everything before the Wall Street analysts. The great revenge of gold concerns above all those objects that have remained forgotten for decades. Baptism necklaces. Milan knitted bracelets. Earrings passed down from mother to daughter. Those pins with initials that seemed destined to lie forever inside a jewelry box.
Today those little pieces of family have a new life. Gold does not need software updates, does not fear hackers, does not require complicated passwords. It doesn’t need artificial intelligence to remind us of its value. He sits there, still, maybe for twenty years, patiently waiting for someone to notice him.
And it’s not just the jewels. There is an entire universe of coins that has rediscovered a second youth. The pound, that currency that grandparents bought “for safety”, is today worth around 850-900 euros. A small disc of precious metal which for many seemed just a whim for nostalgic collectors and which today can instead be transformed into a cruise or a nice paid bill. Then there is the Marengo, the 20 franc or 20 lire coin that smells of Napoleonic history. Today its value is around 700 euros.
And even the old 500 lire silver Caravelle, the ones with Christopher Columbus’ ships pushed by the wind, have regained their dignity. Common examples are worth around ten euros, but the very rare 1957 version with the “against the wind” flags, which never came into circulation due to the error in the minting, can reach collector’s figures of up to thousands of euros: from 3 thousand to 12 thousand. A sort of “Gronchi Rosa” of Italian numismatics given that the sails are inflated by the wind in the opposite direction to the bow.
In short, while technology promises us a future made up of augmented reality and virtual worlds, the past hidden in drawers continues to produce real value. Now this hidden wealth finds a new home: the stock market. The protagonist is Gens Aurea, European leader in regenerated gold, owner of brands such as Orocash, GioiaPura and Luxury Zone. The company became the protagonist of the first major IPO on Piazza Affari after about three years. An important signal: the market is once again looking for true industrial stories, even when they arise from an ancient sector like that of gold. The operation aims to value the group at around 1.4 billion euros and represents a strategic step to accompany international growth. Gens Aurea is not simply an advanced gold buyer. It is an integrated platform that buys used precious stones, recovers them, refines them and returns them to the jewelery supply chain.
The group has over 530 stores in Europe and in 2025 recorded 836 million euros in revenues, 105 million in adjusted Ebitda and 68 million in net profit. The objectives are even more ambitious: 1.5 billion in revenues, over 200 million in gross margin and more than 130 million in net profit are expected for 2026. The industrial plan envisages reaching over 750 stores by 2029, with strong expansion in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania. CEO Fabio Godano summarizes the challenge thus: «We have built a unique platform in the European gold and precious objects market, becoming the largest operator in the regenerated gold sector in Europe. Our platform integrates a widespread presence in retail, industrial expertise, digital skills and rigorous compliance monitoring.”
For Godano, the listing represents a natural step to support growth: «We have a plan for 300 new stores in the next three years. A significant portion of our growth will come from our ability to open stores quickly and efficiently.” In short, the future also depends on being able to transform grandmother’s old jewel into a new raw material.
The other side of the coin is called Kruso Kapital. Here gold is used as collateral to obtain liquidity. The company was founded in 2017 when Banca Sistema entered the pawn credit sector with the ProntoPegno brand. The goal was to completely change the perception of an ancient activity, often associated with difficult moments in life.
The modern version of the pawnshop instead becomes a financial tool for families. In 2022 comes the change of name and a new strategy: to enhance not only jewelery and watches, but also works of art and collectibles. Kruso Art is born, with the acquisition of the Art-Rite auction house, while the Art-Kredit project paves the way for loans guaranteed by works of art.
Growth becomes international: Italy, Greece and Portugal. In 2024 the company acquired Pignus, a historic Portuguese pawnbroker. After listing on EGM in 2024, Kruso Kapital made the leap to the main market in 2026. CEO Giuseppe Gentile has explained several times that pawn credit should not be considered an emergency product, but a modern financial service. No longer “I wear the ring because I’m in difficulty”, but “I enhance an asset that I own without having to sell it”.
On the occasion of the transition to the main list, Gentile defined the operation: «A natural evolution of the company’s path, destined to increase transparency, visibility and credibility towards investors and customers».
In the end the moral is simple. While the world rushes towards cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence and virtual realities, Italians are rediscovering an ancient heritage. The real national sovereign wealth fund is not hidden in large financial databases. It’s in the drawers with the laundry.
Inside those forgotten boxes where a farsighted grandmother had placed a necklace, a coin, a bracelet. Small objects, often considered outdated, which today become protagonists again. Because gold can go down, it can correct, it can take a break. But it has a quality that few investments possess: it knows how to wait. And sometimes, after years of gathering dust, it reminds us of how much it is worth.
