Looking at the gold prices today makes many of wish we’d stocked up on it years ago. Back in August 1999, when gold was selling for around $250 per ounce, we weren’t paying a whole lot of attention to it.

Ah, yesterday. If only we’d bought back then, in 1999, when it was at its lowest in almost 20 years. We can almost hear the cash registers ringing.

By 2010, the investors who put their money in gold assets back in 1999 really had something to glow about. Their pick outperformed the real estate market, the wine market and yes, the stock market in general(1).

But there’s no going back. Gold prices today are more than $1300 per ounce. If our crystal ball had been working back in 1999, we’d have sold some stocks, and maybe a kidney, and bought so much gold that you could have felt the warmth of our glow radiating right through your computer screen.

But instead of breaking out the crying towel, we’re going to try and figure out what we can learn from all this.

First lesson: there is no crystal ball. We all know this, of course, but it still seems like we should have seen this coming. Back in 2000, when folks in the U.S. were spending more on wine than on gold(1), we weren’t buying either one.

But we were far from lonely, at least when it came to not spending our money on gold. Throughout the years, analysts who’ve recommended buying gold have been called everything from eccentric to apocalyptic. We can’t help but wonder if maybe those “oddballs” were on to something–and are on to something, even now.

After all, we’re still hearing that the price of gold is too high. That it’s overinflated. That the market is being artificially manipulated.

That may all be true. But in 10 more years, when we’re talking about gold prices today, we just might have a nice, healthy glow about us.