Sitting in front of me on my desk is history’s most popular brand.

Every year this centuries-old brand sells $100 billion all around the world from the United States to Europe to India to China.

It’s almost certainly the oldest brand known to mankind — with documented occurrences dating back over 6,000 years.

And since its inception, the brand has moved an estimated $6.7 trillion worth of product, using today’s prices.

The brand I’m talking about is gold.

#-ad_banner-#The nugget of gold in front of me on my desk is the size of a quarter. Beside it, I have much larger pieces of other valuable minerals — copper, zinc and quartz, to name a few.

But despite the utility of the latter materials, these samples are worth just a couple of dollars each. My small gold nugget would sell for more than $1,000.

Physically and chemically, there’s really no reason for this difference. Certainly gold has some unique properties: it doesn’t tarnish, and it’s also extremely soft and easy to work into new forms.

But the same is true of copper. And yet the metal sells for just $3 per pound, or about $45 per troy ounce, while the same amount of gold goes for $1,200.

So why do gold’s physical curiosities sell for nearly 30 times more than copper’s? The simple answer is: branding.

Gold is flashy. Its deep, majestic shine summons an impression of grandeur. It instills onlookers with a sense that this is something valuable… something truly worth possessing.

It’s that “gold fever” that has made gold such a recognizable brand. It’s a commodity that buyers and sellers around the world agree has enduring value; so much so, that it has long been the foundation for backing paper money systems.

In essence, gold is a symbol of well-being, reliability and prestige that buyers agree is worth paying a premium for.

And that is the exact definition of a great brand.

Branding is a business phenomenon that has always held great interest for me. Great brands are one of the most successful examples of “irreplaceable assets” — a class of investments that’s yielded exceptional profits for my portfolio and those of countless other investors, over decades and centuries.

Because of the immense power of brands as irreplaceable assets, companies are willing to pay a lot to control them. Just think how much the iconic Coca-Cola label is worth, or the instantly recognizable Nike “swoosh.”

The fashion industry is often where it’s easiest to see the power of irreplaceable assets at work and where some of the world’s most value-enhancing brands are forged.

Take fashion conglomerate PVH Corp. (NYSE: PVH) for example. You’ve probably never heard of the company, but you’ve almost certainly heard of the world-leading brands it owns.

The real irreplaceable asset gems in the PVH portfolio include iconic brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, in addition to a slate of others including Speedo swimsuits, IZOD and Arrow clothiers.

Having that kind of brand power helps PVH generate remarkably strong and efficient revenues every year. In fact since 2010, the company’s revenues have more than tripled to just over $8 billion in 2014.

Earnings, however, over the last few years, have been hampered by restructuring costs associated with PVH’s recent acquisition of Warnaco — the parent owner of Calvin Klein.

In fact for the first nine months of 2013 — PVH had to cover nearly $80 million in “acquisition and integration” costs for Calvin Klein North America alone. Similar costs for Calvin Klein International ran even higher, coming in at over $180 million.

If you stripped out these temporary charges, Calvin Klein as a whole would actually have made an annualized $460 million. Much better than the $110 million these segments reported.

But with these charges now beginning to scale down, I believe that 2015 may be the year we get a look at the “real” Calvin Klein and get income figures that are clear of any unusual distortions.

By my calculations, this factor alone could lift PVH’s earnings by over 10% this year.

That’s why now is the perfect time to buy shares of PVH at one of the cheapest levels in the company’s history.

You see, if you look at PVH’s earnings over the past few quarters, the stock looks pretty ordinary as an investment. Based on trailing twelve-month earnings, it right now trades at a 24.3 price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio.

But as I mentioned, I believe that over the past twelve months we haven’t been seeing the real potential of PVH’s earnings.

When you look at PVH’s trading multiple on a forward basis — based on projected earnings for the coming year — the company is selling at just a 11.4 P/E ratio.

That’s a huge difference, and represents a 36% discount to the S&P average of 17.9.

With iconic brands, growing revenues and an expected earnings boom in 2015, I’m convinced this irreplaceable asset titan is as good as gold. I’m adding it to my portfolio now, while it’s selling cheap… and so should you.

Focusing on irreplaceable assets — like a company’s powerful branding — has helped me, and countless other investors, earn huge profits for decades. It’s no wonder one of the companies I chose in my recent report, “The Top 10 Stocks For April 2015” was named by Forbes as one of the “The World’s Most Valuable Brands.” For more on this company and nine other stocks that I expect to the crush the market in the coming weeks, access my newest report here.