The value of a product is not contingent upon it being a commodity, only on it being the product of labour. The value of a commodity is similarly not contingent on it being exchanged, only on it being a product. The exchange value of a commodity, by contrast, is contingent on its being a product, and so of it being first a value. Only by first being a product, and so being a bearer of value, can that value be compared and equated with the values of other commodities so as to determine an exchange-value. Commodity exchange does not bring value into existence, it only determines its specific historical form as exchange-value, it makes value expressed on the face of the commodity, as Marx puts it in Capital I, as its exchange-value/price.
It is impossible for a commodity, which acts as the measure of value, to itself be invariable in value, and nor is it necessary for it to be so. The search for such an invariable measure of value was simply a quixotic search for a definition of value itself. That search for a definition of value could not be found in some commodity, which is why Smith's theory of value came aground, in confusing labour with the commodity labour-power. Yet, Smith had in front of him the answer all along.
“This was labour-time, social labour, as it presents itself specifically in commodity production. A quantity of labour has no value, is not a commodity, but is that which transforms commodities into values, it is their common substance; as manifestations of it commodities are qualitatively equal and only quantitatively different. They [appear] as expressions of definite quantities of social labour-time.” (p 135)
Suppose gold were such a commodity, whose value was invariable, Marx says. That would not theoretically prevent gold from sharing with every other commodity the same quality of being a bearer of a certain quantity of value, which is to say that it is the product of social labour, and representative of a certain quantity of social labour-time. If that were the case, then changes in the gold price of commodities would only ever be a reflection of the changing values of these other commodities, i.e. changes in the amount of social labour-time these commodities represent. Firstly, however, in measuring this quantity of social labour-time that these different commodities represent, the actual concrete labour used in their production would have to be reduced to an amount of average abstract simple labour, in the same way that it is not possible to measure the comparative lengths of objects using different real human feet, but only by using an average, abstract foot.
“The labour must be qualitatively equal so that its differences become merely quantitative, merely differences of magnitude.” (p 135)
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