What really drives the demand for gold is the social aspect. The primary driver is that rich people accumulate gold and so are associated with it.
This is also why Chanel can charge $3,000 for a purse.
It's also why Apple can charge a premium. It's been a part of their marketing strategy from the beginning.
From pg 78 of Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs:
The third and equally important principle, awkwardly named, was impute. It emphasized that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals it conveys. "People DO judge a book by its cover," he wrote. "We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software, etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities."
There's a great deal of value in perception of value. If you have enough imagination to see value in pieces of paper with dead Presidents on them, then you've got enough imagination to see value in perception.