I think those poor teenage girls are going to need surgery after wearing those medals! Why make a 1.15 lbs silver and bit of gold medal instead of making a half ounce 22k gold medal? Just for show right.
A half ounce 22k medal would be a little smaller than a quarter, I think. I actually commend the Russians for making the medals out of silver as opposed to some base metal.
Aren't they normally made out of silver? I know the medals from the London games were. The gold was silver plated in gold, the silver was silver and the bronze was a bronze-copper alloy.
The Austria 4 ducat weighs less than half oz and is as large as a silver eagle. I am aware that they haven't made solid gold medals for 100+ years, but a 1.1 lb medal is just...a puck not a medal.
They spent over 50 Billion to put on these Olympics, and now they cheap out and refuse to make the Gold metals out of Gold!!!. How much could it really cost?
Well, you figure they will probably award 200 gold medals (when you factor in all the team events). If a 1.1lb medal was 14K gold...it would contain 10.2oz of gold. At $1275.20 per ounce...each medal would have a gold value of just over $13000 each. So, 200 medals would be around $2,600,000. It's true, that's not a ton. But...I personally think the symbolism behind an Olympic Gold is the key here...not the metal the award is made out of. Plus, I wouldn't want to encourage an athlete to sell their medal either...and if they were pure gold they might. I know in this country, Olympic medals have great value to collectors simply because of their symbolism...but in a poor country, someone might not be able to keep $13K in gold lying around. Plus, it's not Russia (who spent $50 Billion on the games) who makes this call anyway. It's the IOC.
Well, the NSA does not have a monopoly when it comes to spying, I suppose ... As for the medals, according to the IOC requirements the "gold" medals are gold-coated silver pieces (min. 92.5% Ag) which have to contain 6g gold. Christian
Yes. (ETA: Oh, except bronze is the alloy, of copper and tin.) They are following the standards of preceding Games. All Olympic gold medals awarded after 1912 have been primarily silver, with a gilding. The current standard is that the core of the gold medals (and the whole of the silver) be at least .925 pure silver. Then the golds must bear at least 6 grams of fine gold plating.
You know that gold medal winners from the US have to pay a tax on the medal?? Somewhere around $9600.00...can you believer that!?
No, they don't. The $9600 or whatever in taxes is on the $25000 that they receive for first place, not for the medal. Umm... if it weighs under 0.5 oz and is the same size as a silver eagle (1.05, give or take troy), it can't be made of 22k gold. It's simply not possible. As for the comments on the Ag/Au content, I forgot about that. I do like the look of the Russian medals, nevertheless.
Also, I just thought about this, the $25k would be income earned abroad, so if they're taxed by the Russian gov't it *might* be tax-free in the US, assuming they don't have other income earned abroad in 2014. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure it's treated as ordinary income for tax purposes, subject to whatever your bracket is. Any claims that you're paying $10k (or any number near that) on the medals themselves are politically driven. The taxes due are mainly on the prizes awarded by the USOC. The medals themselves are *worth* (valued for taxes) by the medal content, which works out to $600 or less at the time of award.
Same diameter, not same thickness. I am aware they haven't made solid gold medals since 1912, and don't intend to change history, but 1.15 lbs medals, really? What's next, 1 kilo?
sure it could, if it was EXTREMELY thin. same diameter as a silver eagle, ok, 1/2 ounce in weight, ok, but the thickness is not mentioned. it IS possible, but i do not think likely.
