REASON Profile: Charles Curley

Charles Curley is best known as the author of The Coming Profit in Gold, published in December 1974 by Bantam. "Basically," he says, "what I did was to take the questions that people have been asking me for three years, and put the answers into book form." The actual writing took eight weeks, but it followed three years of research and work on behalf of the National Committee to Legalize Gold. Active with the Committee since its inception in 1971, Curley gathered publicity for it by taking a bar of gold into a Congressional hearing in 1973. (His Volkswagen, "The Gold Bug," carries license plates "NCLG!" and appropriate bumper stickers!)

Curley has been active in Young Americans for Freedom since 1970, and achieved notoriety of a sort by nominating Nobody for President at the 1971 YAF convention. (The nomination was mentioned in a New York Times editorial.) His experiences in YAF and the Connecticut LP convinced him that he was not cut out for group activity. "For me, the typewriter is mightier than the committee."

As a result he started a full time writing career with two articles in the New Guard, immediately followed by the sale and publication of his book. Since then, he has written for REASON, Gold Newsletter, New Libertarian Notes, and The Freeman, among other publications. In addition, he writes and edits The Charles Curley Letter, a monthly publication that has been coming out "more or less regularly" since January 1974. He now writes economic and political commentary for The Numisco Letter, an investment letter published in Chicago.

After writing his book in August 1974, he pulled up stakes, and traveled from New York to Los Angeles, with stops in Vermont, Connecticut, Florida, and other places, arriving in L.A. in February. "I had some money, and I just decided to take off, and sample parts of the country, and try living in another part for a while." Now settled in L.A., Curley travels around the country, covering or speaking at investment conferences all over the U.S.

When not a professional gold bug or economic writer, Curley likes to relax by sailing or playing chess, or working with his hands. He has in the past earned his living as a mechanic, a machinist, and as a yacht skipper, all of which he enjoys immensely on his own as well as for pay.