Olympic Gold Medals Contain About the Same Amount of Gold as Your Wedding Ring
According to Yahoo starting next week, athletes from around the world will be trying to win Olympic gold medals . . . and it turns out, those medals only contain about as much gold as your wedding ring.
The gold medals they'll be giving away in London weigh a little over 14 ounces . . . but only contain about a FIFTH of an ounce of gold. That's a little over 1%. They're actually mostly SILVER . . . about 93%. The remaining 6% is copper.
The last time the Olympics gave away solid gold medals was in 1912. But now, the only requirement is that the gold medal has at least 6 grams of gold. (--Six grams is just over 0.2 ounces.)
If you add up the value of the medal's ingredients on the precious-metals market, a gold medal would be worth about $650.
Silver medals are 93% silver and 7% copper, which would bring about $335. The bronze is pretty much all copper . . . which means it's worth less than five bucks.