I have a lot of gold in the town center, but I want to just stockpile 64 blocks and bars and then not care about them anymore, and only use them in the worst emergency.
I will strip mine for some gold and give 50% to the public storage, which can be spent on rails.
Maybe go to an epic cave in the new 1.8 terrain, when I ventured there for only iron, gold and diamond, I got more than an entire stack of gold, and many stacks of iron.