RE: No doubt about it...Gold will never reach the 79/80 price range there where a lot more things politically going on including a hostage taking at the US embassy by Ayatollah Khomeini
Hostage Crisis
Early in the revolution in the years of 1979 to 1981, Khomeini's followers abducted 52 United States citizens and held them hostage in Tehran's US embassy for 444 days – an event often referred to as the Iranian hostage crisis. Khomeini stated on February 23, 1980 that Iran's parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages demanding the United States hand over the Shah for trial in Iran. President Jimmy Carter launched a commando mission to rescue the hostages, but the attempt was thwarted when the helicopters deployed failed under unexpected desert conditions in Tabas. Some Iranians considered this to be a miracle. Many commentators point to this failure as a major cause of Carter's loss in the following elections to Ronald Reagan.
Then at the same time the conflict with the Russians. Our world was at a stand off and everyone was grabbing up gold as a secure holding in case of world war. Dollars mean nothing in a case of war & gold will always be worth something, Although personally I don't know why a soft metal has the value it does no different than diamonds. IMO some rocks are as nice as diamonds but have no value. Go figure,. Anyway for argument sake I don't think gold will ever go over $500/oz without a very good reason. This article explains a little more on who supplied who, And I could dig up a lot more on that time line.
https://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/ShalomIranIraq.html