Gold - Awesome Facts about Gold

All the gold in the world that has ever been refined is approximately 150,000 tonnes. The total world's production of gold would be equal to a single cube 66 feet by 66 feet by 66 feet. And amazingly, 60% has been mined since 1950! The total world's holdings of gold could be transported by just one oil tanker.

Gold's ductility (able to be drawn into a fine wire) is such that just one ounce of gold can be drawn into a wire (0.000005 inch thick) 62 miles long or plate a thread of copper 1,000 miles long! According to the World Gold Council, all the gold so far produced, if stretched into a thin wire of 5-micron diameter, would circum navigate the world 72 million times.

Gold can be hammered into a sheet so thin that sunlight can shine through it. In fact gold is so malleable that a goldsmith can hammer one ounce of gold into a thin translucent sheet covering more than 100 square feet - five millionths of an inch thick. 1,000 of such sheets would be equal to the thickness of one page of newsprint and a stack an inch high would contain more than 200,000 separate sheets.

One cubic foot of gold weighs 1,206 pounds. More than half a ton! A metric ton, usually spelled ‘tonne,’ is one thousand kilograms. At the time of writing this page the spot price of Gold is US $593.00 so the

current value of a metric tonne of gold is US $19,064,950.00. Yikes!

The rarity of Gold is such that industry pours more steel in an hour than the total of all the gold poured since the beginning of recorded time.

Statistically, a one-ounce gold nugget is harder to find than a five-carat diamond. Because of gold's rarity, a nugget can be worth several times more than the value of the gold it contains. A gold nugget is considered a gemstone because of its rarity and beauty.

Seawater contains vast quantities of dissolved gold, perhaps as much as 10 trillion dollars (US) worth, though in dilute concentrations. Even at the conservative estimates of 10 ppt of gold in seawater, there is a great deal of gold in solution in the oceans. The sea water of the Earth's oceans contain about 25 billion ounces of gold (Burk 1989).

Some experts consider that much of the earths continental gold deposits have biological origins. Certain bacteria are believed to have been involved in the precipitation of gold out of dilute hydrothermal solutions.

Estimates of gold's abundance range from 3 to 6 ppb (parts per billion) in the Earth's crust (Simon 1973, Lucas 1985). That is equivalent to about 1 gram of gold in 275 tons of rock.

Gold is considered one of the most important metals in jewelry making although it is so soft it is seldom used in its pure form. Gold has lustrous beauty, it’s easily workable and is virtually indestructible. Gold is inactive chemically and is not affected by air, heat, moisture and ordinary solvents.

Gold is chemically liquefied and injected into the muscles of thousands of rheumatoid arthritis victims around the globe with very high success rates.

The jewelry industry uses about 1,000 tons of gold per year and dentistry uses 87 tons.

Gold is used in window glass and astronaut helmets to reflect infrared rays while allowing sunlight to pass through, and at the same time keeping it cool.

The largest gold mine in the U.S. is the Homestake Mining Company in Lead, South Dakota.

At the start of the California gold rush there was no fixed price for the yellow metal. It was a supply and demand situation, with a fluctuating value between a low of $6 per ounce to a high of $18 per ounce. The price finally stabilized in 1854 at $16 per ounce with the opening of a branch of the United States Mint in San Francisco.

Periodic Table information:

Symbol=Au

Atomic Number=79

Atomic Weight=196.96

Melting Point=1337.33 degrees Kelvin

Melting point= 2,063 degrees Fahrenheit

Specific gravity is 19.32

Tensile strength=19,000psi

Hardness=2.75 on Mohs scale

Is one of the "Transition Metals"

Gold is weighed in a system of measurements called "Troy Measurements". Troy measurements are such that one pound (lb) is divided up into 12 Troy Ounces and each Troy Ounce is divided up into 20 units called Pennyweight (dwt).

Helpful Conversions

1 troy ounce = 1.097 ordinary ounce

1 tonne = 32,151 troy ounces

One Troy lb (pound) = 12 troy ounces

One troy oz = 20 pennyweight (dwt)

One troy oz = 480 grains

One troy oz = 33.3 grams

One pennyweight = 24 grains

Formula to convert grams to pennyweight ____grams X .6006006 = dwt

Formula to convert grams to Troy Ounces _____grams X .03003 = troy ounces

One mg (milligram) = 1/1000 g

One g (gram) = 1000 mg, 14.4 gr (grains)

One k (kilogram0 = 1000 g, 35 oz, 2.2 lbs.

One gr (grain0 = .65 g (grams)

One oz (ounce) = 38.35 g

One lb (pound) = 16 oz, 454 g, .45 k

The chemical symbol for gold is Au, from the Latin aurum, which means 'shining dawn'. Aurora was the Roman goddess of dawn which links to the warm, yellow colour of gold.

Gold and Copper are the only two non white coloured metals.

The purity of gold is measured in Carats. A Carat was originally a unit of mass (weight) based on the Carob seed or bean which was used by ancient merchants in the Mediterranean and Middle East when a carat became used as a measure of the purity of gold alloys. For gold a carot is used to measure the purity where pure gold is 24 carats.

The purity of gold articles is generally described in three ways:

South Africa leads the world in gold production. Other countries leading world production are Russia, Canada, the United States and Australia.

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Gold Facts - Gold Information

In 1854 the largest gold nugget ever found was in California at Carson Hill above the Stanislaus River. It weighed 195 pounds and was valued at $43,534 in the currency of the day. Another large nugget was turned up by a wagon wheel in Australia (1869) and weighed 159 lbs.

In 1869 the name "Mother Lode" was coined and referred to only five counties: Mariposa, Tuolumne, Calaveras, Amador and El Dorado. Actually more gold was later found in Placer, Nevada, Sierra and Plumas counties.

Gold can be transmitted from platinum by nuclear reaction.

The United States government banned private ownership of gold, which lasted 41 years; then lifted it on December 31, 1974.

A worldwide feeding frenzy for gold cannonballed its price to an all-time high of $850 per ounce on January 21, 1980.

Since being discovered in the Bronze age, gold has always been recycled. Thus your gold ring or dental filling may contain some gold that was mined in prehistoric times or formed part of a valued gold artifact in ancient civilizations. Today, at least 15% of annual gold consumption is recycled each year.

Gold Filled: Also called gold overlay, a layer of at least 10-karat gold permanently bonded by heat and pressure to one or more surfaces of a support metal, then rolled or drawn to a prescribed thickness. The karat gold must be at least 1/10 by weight of the total metal content.

Rolled Gold Plate: Material consisting of a layer of plating of 10-karat gold or better which is mechanically bonded to a base metal. The karat gold content may be less than 1/20 but must be properly identified by weight in terms of total metal content.

Vermeil: Gold at least 15- micro-inches thick, bonded to sterling silver by an electrolytic or mechanical process.

Gold Leaf: Pure gold that is pounded into sheets applied to other surfaces by hand. Usually about 3 micro-inches thick.

Gold ore with as little as 1 part gold to 300,000 parts of worthless material can be mined at a profit.

To calculate the cost of one gram of gold, divide the US dollar price for one troy ounce by 31.1035 (one fine troy ounce is equal to 31.1035 grams).

The market-clearing price of gold set twice a day in London is commonly referred to as the London fixing price (AM or PM). This price, which is the international benchmark price, is set in US dollars per fine troy ounce of gold.

The world average mining cost per troy ounce was around USD 235.00 in 2002 (based on figures published by Gold Field Mineral Services). These costs include depreciation and amortization but to get a true estimate one should add between 30 and 40 USD/ounce to cover exploration, head office costs and so on. However, costs vary widely between companies and the mines themselves.

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Legend has it, that the method of raising flags to fix the price of gold began in the following way. There was a man named Amshel who collected coins and lived in the ghettos of Frankfurt in the late 1700’s. Owing to his specialised knowledge, Amshel became the seeker of old coins for William IX of Hesse-Kassel. In 1805, impressed with the financial insight of Amshel’s son, Nathan, William IX entrusted him with a large portion of his wealth.

Rather than buying and selling coins as his father had done, Nathan decided to buy and sell gold bullion. Nathan allegedly commented that the only two people who understood the true value of gold were one of the directors of the Bank of England and an obscure clerk in the vault of the Banque de Paris and unfortunately they disagreed! Soon Nathan was receiving advance information from France through a series of carefully arranged flag signals from across the Channel.

As he was receiving his information much more quickly than other traders, he soon amassed a great fortune and a few years later he was dubbed a Baron by Francis I of Austria. That is why representatives from each of the five major bullion houses meet twice a day to raise and lower flags, as they fix the price of gold. This takes place at the offices of NM Rothschild, which was founded by Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild.

Gold is also one of the heaviest metals known and is six to seven times heavier than other materials of equal comparative size. Gold has a specific gravity of 19.3, which means it weighs 19.3 times as much as an equal volume of water.

PERCENT

(parts of gold per 100)

100 percent

91.7 percent

75.0 percent

58.3 percent

41.6 percent

FINENESS

parts of gold per 1000

999 fine

917 fine

750 fine