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Faced with piles of riyal bank notes that grow bigger but more worthless every day amid the panic over the country's mounting nuclear crisis, they are turning to the one currency that has weathered every twist in Iran's turbulent history - the sekkeh, or gold sovereigns first minted in ancient Persia in 500 BC.

"The riyal is falling so fast that it's impossible to do business in it," Mr Fathi, 35, a stationery merchant, told The Sunday Telegraph last week.

"We can't agree any proper deals with other firms because within an hour or two, the prices of everything may have changed. The government has limited the amount of other currencies we can use, so everyone is using gold instead."

The switch to gold is partly due to the crude vote-buying policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has fuelled rampant inflation by handing out cash to millions of households to offset recent subsidy cuts on fuel.