Ricky,

The Germans who grew up learning about their Weimer currency collapse have recently given up their treasured Deutschmarks for Euros. For a while it looked OK. Now they look for alternatives for their savings (they are a frugal people with substantial savings, now losing value in big chunks very rapidly). They buy physical gold, not gold miners. Same for the people with money in Greece, France, Spain, Portugal, yada yada. They buy dollars too, of course.

In the gold realm, nothing else besides physical will do. For now, at least.

Lucy