Really?

I can't find the figures for 40 years ago, but let's try 1971 then -37.

As you can see here Deflators, 40$ in 1971 would get you in 2007 (figures not available for 2008, but it would be around 3% extra):

$204.73  using the Consumer Price Index  
$165.75  using the GDP deflator
$222.12  using the value of consumer bundle (probably the most relevant)
$200.31  using the unskilled wage
$336.89  using the nominal GDP per capita (that makes little sense in terms of purchasing power)
$490.02  using the relative share of GDP  (makes no sense at all in terms of purchasing power -you'd have to have newcomers receiving zero to bring it to the previous, already inflated, figure)

As you can see here Gold price history, an ounce of gold was worth around $35 (I didn't want to be told that my figures were due to rounding the graph too low, hence my 40$ above).
That reached around 680 in 2007.

So OK, my tenfold was way off, it's actually threefold (or maybe it's not over 40 years at all, but much longer, or rather over the seventies, where it was indeed tenfold in real terms), but as I said I didn't have the figures with me. The point is that it's a legend to hold gold as fully representative of purchasing power.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi