Gold held near 23-year highs on Monday after another round of fund buying spurred by worries over inflation and by a strong appetite for commodity investments.
Despite some prospect of fund liquidation, runaway gold prices boosted other precious metals, with platinum at a near-26-year high, while silver hit an 18-year peak.
Spot gold briefly hit $508.25 a troy ounce before easing to $505.50/506.30 by 1533 GMT, up from $503.00/503.80 last quoted in New York on Friday.
Gold climbed to $509.20 in February 1983. Anything above that level would take the metal to its highest since January 1980, when it hit a record $850.
"The market is maybe not quite as euphoric as it was last week when we finally broke $500, but it is prompting a lot of interest that has been reported around the world and is attracting fresh buying," said Frederic Panizzutti, analyst with Swiss-based MKS Finance.
Many participants said gold might attract profit-taking once it had crossed $500 - a level it has attained and briefly held only twice in the past three decades.
It spent much of the period from 1997 to 2001 below $300, before embarking on a bull run that has since seen prices nearly double.
Paul Merrick, vice-president of commodities at RBC Capital Markets, said the strength of the market over the past three weeks was very unusual and uniformly strong across trading zones.
"I would suggest the market is just catching its breath at the moment," he said. "There are very good reasons for what is happening and there is concerted buying by investors out there."
Healthy demand, stagnating supply, a recent dearth of forward selling by gold miners and more orderly sales from central banks have all aided the rally.
Speculators have bought spot gold and futures, specialist investment products and shares in mining firms, which has made a big impact on prices due to the relatively small size of commodities compared with other asset classes.
Mike Lenhoff, chief strategist at Brewin Dolphin Securities, said in a research note that the size of the quoted global market in gold shares equated to just three percent of the market capitalisation of the UK's FTSE All-Share index.
"Viewed in this context, one can appreciate the impact the full weight of money will have on such a tiny sector...when the big institutional investors and the hedge funds or retail investors decide they want a piece of the action in the gold market," he said.
Bullion's dollar performance has been matched elsewhere, with gold prices in a range of other currencies at multi-decade or all-time highs.
"We think the key reason for gold's rally has been its impressive technical trends in a variety of currencies (particularly euro and yen), with inflationary concerns a post-rationalisation for buying gold," Barclays Capital said.
Other precious metals followed gold's lead.
Platinum was at $999/1,003 an ounce from $1,000/1,005 late in New York. In early trade platinum rose to $1,006, the highest since March 1980.
Palladium was at a 19-month high of $270/274 an ounce, up from $264/268. Silver was unchanged at $8.54/8.57, but off an earlier peak of $8.64, the highest since August 1987.
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