Facts About Gold (Under Construction)

Ever since its discovery 5,000 years ago, gold has been treasured for its unmatched luster, beauty and intrinsic value. Today, gold continues to enjoy widespread appeal as an investment and storehouse of value. Gold is an internationally recognized monetary and financial asset held in reserve by major governments. It is so rare that all the gold ever mined could fit into a cube measuring just 20 yards on each side.

What is Gold?
Gold is a heavy, yellow, metallic chemical element. It is a precious metal, with a high degree of ductility and malleability, that is used in the manufacture of a wide range of products including jewelry, electronics, and coinage. Gold forms in high temperature hydrothermal quartz veins. These veins carry the gold to the earth's surface through super heated solutions and this material deposits in fissures to form ore bodies. Erosion of the host rock by wind and water washes the gold from the ore bodies. Some of the gold stays near the vein and water carries some of the gold into rivers and streams. The gold nuggets found in rivers and streams are known as placer gold while the gold found in ore bodies and veins is known as lode gold. Typically, the old timers would follow placer deposits to the source, or lode gold, and then start hard rock mining. 

Mineral symbol: Au, hardness: 2.5-3, specific gravity: 19.29, color: golden yellow to white or orange/red 

How is Gold Weighed?

The weight of gold or gold articles is usually expressed in troy ounces.

1 troy ounce = 1.097 ordinary ounce

12 troy ounce=1 troy pound

31.1 grams=1 troy ounce

1.55 grams=1 pennyweight (1dwt)

20 pennyweight (dwt) = 1 troy ounce

24 grains=1 pennyweight (dwt)

480 grains=1 troy ounce

How is Purity Measured?
The purity of gold articles is generally described in three ways:

Percent Fineness Karats
(parts of gold per 100) (parts of gold per 1000) (parts of gold per 24)

100 percent 999 fine 24 karat
91.7 percent 917 fine 22 karat
75.0 percent 750 fine 18 karat
58.3 percent 583 fine 14 karat
41.6 percent 416 fine 10 karat

What Does it Mean?

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.

IMPORTANT DATES IN THE HISTORY OF GOLD

Gold probably was found on the ground and used by prehistoric man as a tool. Highly sophisticated gold art objects and jewelry discovered by archaeologists in the Royal Tombs at Ur, in what is now Southern Iraq, date back to around 3000 BC. Similarly, goldsmiths of the Chavin civilization in Peru were making ornaments by hammering and embossing gold by 1200 BC.


4000 BC Gold first known to be used in parts of Central and Eastern Europe. 

3000 Egyptians master the art of beating gold into gold leaf and alloying it with other metals. 

1500 The Shekel (two-thirds gold) used as a standard unit of measure throughout the Middle East. 

1091 Squares of gold are legalized in China as a form of money. 

58 Julius Caesar seizes enough gold in Gaul (France) to repay Rome's debts. 

1100 AD Venice secures its position as the world's leading gold bullion market due to its location astride the trade routes to the east. 

1511 King Ferdinand of Spain sends explorers to the Western Hemisphere with the command to "get gold." 

1717 Isaac Newton, Master of the London Mint, sets price of gold that lasts for 200 years. 

1787 First US gold coin is struck by Ephraim Brasher, a goldsmith. 

1803 North Carolina site of first US gold rush. The state supplies all the domestic gold coined for currency by the US Mint in Philadelphia until 1828. 

1848 California gold rush begins when James Marshall finds specks of gold in tailrace of John Sutter's sawmill near the junction of the American and Sacramento Rivers. 

1850 Edward Hammong Hargraves, returning from California, predicts he will find gold in Australia within one week. He discovers gold in New South Wales within one week of landing. 

1886 George Harrison, while digging stones to build a house, discovers gold in South Africa. 

1887 Glasgow doctors, Robert and William Forrest, and chemist John S. MacArthur patent the process for extracting gold from ore using cyanide. 

1896 Two prospectors discover gold while fishing in the Klondike River in northern Canada, richer finds were rumored farther south in Alaska's Yukon, spawning the Alaska Gold Rush in 1898 -- the last gold rush of the
century.

1900 US adopts the gold standard for its currency. 

1903 The Engelhard Corporation introduces an organic medium to print gold on surfaces. First used for decoration, the medium becomes the foundation for microcircuit printing technology. 

1922 King Tutankhamen's tomb (1352 BC) opened to reveal a 2,448 lb. gold coffin and hundreds of gold and gold-leafed objects (including the mask pictured at the beginning of this section). 

1927 Medical study in France proves gold to be valuable in treatment of Rheumatoid arthritis. 

1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt bans the export of gold, halts the convertibility of dollar bills into gold, orders US citizens to hand in all the gold they possess and establishes a daily price for gold. 

1934 Roosevelt fixes price of gold at $35 per ounce. 

1935 Western Electric Alloy #1 (69% gold, 25% silver and 6% platinum) finds universal use in all switching contacts for AT&T telecommunications equipment. 

1947 The first transistor, the building block for electronics, is assembled at AT&T Bell Laboratories. The device uses gold contacts pressed into a germanium surface. 

1960 Laser invented using gold-coated mirrors to maximize infrared reflection. 

1961 Modern-day mining begins in Nevada's Carlin Trend, ultimately making Nevada the nation's largest gold-mining state. 

1968 Intel introduces a microchip with 1,024 transistors connected by gold circuits. On March 15, central banks give up fixed price of gold at $35 per troy ounce and let it free float.

1969 Gold coated visors protect astronauts' eye from searing sunlight on the moon (Apollo 11 moon landing). 

1970 Charged coupled device invented, using gold to collect electrons generated by light, eventually used in hundreds of military and civilian devices, including video cameras. 

1971 The colloidal gold marker system is introduced by Amersham Corporation of Illinois. Tiny spheres of gold are used in health research laboratories worldwide to mark or tag specific proteins to reveal their function in the human body for the treatment of disease. 

1974 On December 31, US government ends its ban on individual ownership of gold. 

1980 Gold reaches intra-day historic high price of $870 on January 21 in New York. 

1986 Gold-coated compact discs are introduced. 

1987 Airbags are introduced for cars, using gold contacts for reliability. 

1996 Mars Global Surveyor launched with an on-board gold-coated parabolic telescope-mirror that will generate a detailed map of the entire Martian surface over a two-year period. 

1997 Congress passes Taxpayers Relief Act, allowing US Individual Retirement Account holders to buy gold bullion coins and bars for their accounts as long as they are of a fineness equal to, or exceeding, 99.5 percent gold.