Clinker

You can vision the term "gold ingot". It's a rectangular-shaped bar of gold produced by first melting gold ore, nuggets, or dust and secondly pouring the molten gold into a rectangular mold where it waits to cool down until it forms a solid bar.

The mine either owns its own smelter or pays a private smelter to produce these bars. These bars or "ingots" are referred to as dore (prounounced Dorry) bars. They are usually of an .800 fineness and weigh 65 pounds. To make gold coins, the West Point Mint resmelts the dories and refines the gold until it attains a .9999 fineness. These refined bars now weigh 80 pounds and the fineness is stamped right on the bar.

Here's a stack of Swiss gold bars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gold_ingots.jpg
Until recently Canada was the only country producing a .9999 fine gold coin. That gold coin is the Maple Leaf. Today most countries' bullion coins are .9999 fine including Austrailia's Gold Nuggets (now called Gold Kangaroos), and (beginning in 2006) the United States Gold American Buffaloes.
Here are five who don't:

Dubai - .999


Iran - .995

Hong Kong - .99

Thailand - .965

Large 400 0z. "London Good Delivery" bars, held by central banks, are normally of .995 fineness.
That's not to say their "bullion" coins do not have a whole ounce of gold in them: Many bullion coins weigh more than one ounce as Austrailia's Kruggerrands.
Did you know the Chinese New Year's cookie, Yau Gwak, is made in the shape of an ingot?

One troy ounce of gold = 31.1034768 grams.

Note: where gold is measured in ounces, these are troy ounces, not the much more common avoirdupois ounce which is used for measuring weights in food, etc. An avoirdupois ounce is lighter than a troy ounce. One avoirdupois ounce = 28.349523125 grams.

Note: Gold is the most mallrable and ductile metal; a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of one square meter, or an ounce into 300 square feet. Gold readily forms alloys with many other metals. These alloys increase the hardness or create exotic colors. Adding copper, like a lot of Eqyptian gold coins, yields a redder metal; iron, blue; aluminum, purple; platinum, white, and natural bismuth or silver (and silver alloys) produce black. Native gold contains usually eight to ten percent silver, but often much more - alloys with a silver content over 20% are called electrum. As the amount of silver increases, the color becomes whiter and the sprcific gravity becomes lower.

Note: During the 19th century, gold rushes occurred whenever large gold deposits were discovered. The first major gold strike in the United States occurred in a small north Georgia town called Dahlonega.Further gold rushes occurred in Calfornia, Colorado, Otego, Austrailia, Black Hills of Dakota Territory, and Alaska.
Here's some nugget images courtesy of Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Native_gold_nuggets.jpg

Here's an image of the largest Gold nuggest found in America!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stringer156_nugget.jpg

Note: Since ore grades of 30 g/1000 kg (30 ppm) are usually needed before gold is visible to the naked eye, in most gold mines the gold is invisible.

Note: In 1936 the U.S. Treasury Department began construction of the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky on land deeded from the U.S. Army. The site is located on what is now Bullion Blvd. at the intersection of Gold Vault Rd. The 'Gold Vault' was completed in December 1936 at a cost of $560,000.

The first gold shipments were made in January 1937. The majority of the United States' gold reserves were gradually shipped to the site, including old bullion and more recently produced bars made from melted gold coins. Some intact coins were stored, as well. The transfer needed 500 rail cars and was sent by registered mail, protected by the Postal Inspection Service.
But the largest known nugget ever found in the world was the ‘Welcome Stranger’, discovered in Australia in 1858, it weighed 2,284 oz (71 kg)!
Note: The depository ar Fort Knox holds about 3% of the total gold ever mined in the world, which is estimated at 145,000 metric tons.

Note: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York maintains an underground vault in Manhattan. Reputedly it is the largest gold repository in the world (though this cannot be confirmed as Swiss Banks do not report their gold stocks). In the US The FRBNY's stocks are larger even than Fort Knox, holding approximately 5,000 tons of gold bullion. The gold is owned by many foreign nations, central banks and official international organizations. The Federal Reserve Bank does not own the gold but serves as guardian of the precious metal, which it "protects" at no charge as a gesture of good will to other nations.

Note: The smallest cast bar in grams weighs 10 g, first made in Brazil by Degussa (since 1985).

Note: The world’s largest standard "minted" bars: the 20 oz and 500 g which are manufactured by Johnson Matthey (Canada).

Did you enjoy this trivia?

Clinker

Bonedigger

Keep em' coming

Thanks
Ben

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Troodon

Er, Australia's? Don't you mean South Africa's Kruggerands? Or possibly Australia's Kookaburras?

You are right about one thing though, a lot of countries' gold coins that are less than .9999 fineness make up for that by simply making the coin heavier so you're still getting the equivalent of 1 ounce of gold. For example, the one ounce American Gold Eagle is only 91.67% gold (5.3% copper to harden the coin to make it easier to mint, 3% silver to give the coin brighter luster), but you're still getting an ounce of gold in the coin because the coin weighs about 34 grams, slightly more than an ounce.

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Clinker

Thanks for pointing that out Troodon....I was thinking about Australia when I typed Krugerrand so made the error which you so graciously corrected...again...thanks...

Clinker

gxseries

This is a bit ambigious. It seems like a bullion trivia.

If you asked me what ingots are, I was thinking the Swiss bars and the Chinese bun shaped ingots.

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My numismatics articles and collection: http://www.gxseries.com/numis/numis_index.htm Regularly updated at least once a month.

Clinker

gxseries....

Yes, there are many different kinds of ingots... Japan evens mints 1/2. and 1 gram ingots for use as jewelery, but the next time you go yo New York City call ahead to the Fed Reserve Bank and ask to be put on their list for a tour....They give tours everyday including Sundays and holidays...

Clinker

swick

Clinker,
Very interesting stuff! Thank you!

swick

Aidan Work

Clinker,I'm pleased that you mentioned the Otago Gold Rush.A lot of New Zealanders are unaware of this important event in New Zealand's colonial history.

Here's a link; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otago .

The Aussie Kookaburra bullion medal-coins are actually .999 fine silver,not gold.They are still being struck today at the Perth Mint.

Here's a link; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_Mint .

Aidan.

AdamL

Thanks for sharing Clinker. You trivia are usually the only really long posts that I take the time to read.

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Phoenix21

Wow, awesome info! Thanks for sharing with us! Looking forward to the next one.

Phoenix

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Clinker

AdamL and Phoenix...

Thanks to the both of you....for reading and commenting... Always read what others say...because they sometimes add some important info and dialog to the thread!...

Clinker

USS656

Sorry for not adding anything meaningful other than thanks again for sharing your knowledge/trivia .

Darryl

gxseries

Here is an ingot from Adelaide in the early days. You don't want to know how expensive these are when you can ever find them in the market - it's virtually unobtainable.



Picture taken in Canberra Mint.

And those who are interested in where gold is minted from, I visited a gold mine in Australia (links to another forum)
http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=10966

__________________
My partial list of coins: Omnicoin

My numismatics articles and collection: http://www.gxseries.com/numis/numis_index.htm Regularly updated at least once a month.

JeromeLS

Random bit of extra information: In 19th century brazil, large gold "neccesity" bars circulated along with regular coinage......don't ask how much one would cost !

Clinker

gxseries
...thanks for the links...
USS656...Glad you enjoyed the trivia and the others' participation...
JeromeLS... Thanks for the addition of Brazil...

Clinker