Interesting article on what Apple has done to gold to use less but still call 18K

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox...ossible.html?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email

 

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Last week, Apple cultists took note after the Financial Times published a profile of the company's design guru, Jony Ives, in which he explained that “the molecules in Apple gold are closer together, making it twice as hard as standard gold.”

This is clearly complete bollocks, in two ways. The gold is an element not a compound or one of the few elements that naturally form a di-atomic pair and it is impossible without altering the nature of the universe to move the atoms of an element closer together. Well, you can, I suppose, overcome the the atomic force in the case of a fusion reaction or in the core or a neutron star but you'd not want either on your wrist. The designer does not know his atoms from his molecules

Reading further, it appears that they have made an alloy with the atoms dispersed in a non metallic material, so they are in fact further apart.

A lesson not to let designers say anything even vaguely scientific.

Anyone spending five figures on such wierd tat should be gently led away to a padded room.

A prudent person should wait a year or so till they can get one from China for $50.

 

I agree afantiques. They are calling this new method a matrix composite, not an alloy. If it is not an alloy then it should not be considered in the current measure of what makes 10k, 14k, 18k, 22k, etc.
However I do like the idea of using it in jewelry to make the metal stronger and more scratch resistant, but a lower price should reflect that there is less gold.

 

When I was reading it, I was thinking, "yeah, no, totally not possible"...glad to see another person questioning the facts presented by our media. Here is another article that describes how silly that description is.

http://gizmodo.com/how-apple-will-make-superstrong-apple-gold-for-its-wa-1690212768

 

Fancy gold-plating you say?

I think I've seen this re-run: I'm old enough to remember them telling us cds would "last forever!" and that "you pay for cable so you don't have to watch ads."

Just wait, c. 2018: worn, broken AppleWatch = zero scrap Au value.

 

Wow, Barry Chappell just said that the new Apple watch is going to take 1/3 of the world's gold so it will go up and up and up!!! I hardly believe that the miniscule amount of gold they use on the watch will eat up 1/3 of the world's supply. They spew so much BS on that show about where gold and silver is going. But I do enjoy watching what they are doing and selling now and then.

 

They are going to have to sell a lot of $10,000 watches to eat up that much supply!

 

If they used 10 grams of gold in the watch case, which would be fairly typical for something of this size and design, and sold 1 million of the things, an unlikely estimate, that would be 10 million grams or 10 thousand kilos, or 10 metric tonnes of gold. Since it would not be pure gold but 18 carat that equates to 7.5 tonnes of fine gold,

This amounts to less than 0.1% of the US gold reserves, and of course a far smaller fraction of world reserves.

Clearly whoever made the comment about '1/3 of the world's gold' is either an idiot or a liar.

 

They were referring to 1/3 of yearly mining production. It still won't happen as they'd have to sell millions of these $10,000 watches.

I'm pretty sure I read they are using about an ounce and a half of gold in these watches.

Yearly gold production is about a 100 million. They'd have to sell about 22 million watches a year to use up 1/3 of the yearly gold production.

 

The heaviest gold watch with an 18 carat case that I have had was an IWC with a really chunky case and that weighed about 32 grams or 1 troy ounce. My Corum is slimmer and only half an ounce.

I have scrapped many wristwatch cases, and I estimated the weight looking at the illustration,and not even considering their 'extra bulky' gold I'd not expect that to scrap out at as much as 15 grams or half oz.t.

Even looking at the annual production of gold, Indian weddings alone will mop up far more production than these things ever could.

 

Apparently they are very bulky because there are 55 grams of 18k gold in them. I was a little off on my 1.5 oz estimate, its actually 1.326 oz of pure gold.

This is assuming a conventional gold makeup, supposedly apple patented some thing so they can still call it 18k without having to put the normal amount of gold in it, so who knows.

"55 grams of 18-karat gold: As of today, the spot price of 18-karat gold means this would set you back about $1,550."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/prof...gold-apple-watch-edition-2015-3#ixzz3UZYXAfXu

 

Depends on what your definition of Gold is....

 

If you add the cost of 55 grams of 18-karat gold to the cost of the watch, plus say $100 per unit (which seems quite liberal) for other production costs, you get to about $2,200. The cost of shipping it, marketing it and selling it once it's arrived in whatever country are priced into the basic watch itself. Those things together would imply a mark-up of about 354%. At least$7,800 of the price-tag would be profit.


But in fact, that might be too low an estimate.

Forbes notes that the actual gold content of the watch is lower than standard 18-karat gold, and estimates that there's as little as $640 of gold in the model. That's because it's a metal matrix composite that Apple has patented

There seems to to be a lot of confusion here, among commentators.

If 55 grams of this stuff does not contain 75% pure gold, it is not 18 carat gold. Forbes saying the actual gold content is lower than 'standard' 18 carat really means 'it is not 18 carat gold' . They are saying that it is nearly pregnant or almost a virgin. Or slightly dead.


If these things are said to be 18 carat gold and do not contain 75% by weight of pure gold in the matrix material they will be illegal to sell in the EU because they will violate hallmarking laws.

I still find the 55 gram figure incredible. That would be the case weight of a typical heavy cased late 19th C pocket watch of about 2 inches diameter and half an inch thickness. A typical 1920s watch of the same diameter but little more than half the thickness would be typically 1 ounce.

Purchasers of this watch will be (probably unwittingly) copying the Potlatch ritual of the Northwest coast of America, where part of the ritual was to destroy wealth in a competitive manner to show who could afford to destroy the most.

 

I see no way that this watch case could contain 55g of 18K, for the reasons @afantiques outlined.

 

Oh fancy gold-plating, you say?
I'm willing to guess this watch case might contain less than 5 g of fine gold.
This "news" is just to hype the product; the contrary truth that AppleWatch will have almost no scrap value might sink expectations with the cry "Mickey Mouse!" (Synonym for 'cheap.') You will all have forgotten this "news" in six months anyway.

Remember when? (How many Double Eagles would $4,000. have purchased in June 1973? You can find a vintage working Pulsar on eBay for ~$350.)

Pay closer attention to the past. This time will be different?
http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/time-after-time-70-years-of-broken-smartwatch-dreams-510651741/1632952490/ mattnovak

 

The discussions I've seen indicate that Apple's composite is still 75% gold by weight, which makes it 18K by definition -- but its density is much lower than standard 18K gold (perhaps by as much as 60%), meaning that an object of a given volume will contain less total material (and, thus, less gold) than if it were made of conventional 18K gold.

I would think that lower density (and lower total weight) would be a good thing for a watch.

As for the "atoms closer together" bit, that sounds like woo.

 

Thought a few might like to read this. Held off for a while due o its complexity, but I think there are a few who could slough through it Apology in advance.


Apple's patent

http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20140361670&IDKey=A9058DEAFBAB&HomeUrl=http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1%26Sect2=HITOFF%26d=PG01%26p=1%26u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html%26r=1%26f=G%26l=50%26s1=20140361670.PGNR.%26OS=%26RS=


Actually if one searches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphous_metal
Above early work with metal/ceramic mix to make "metal glass" starting in the 60s at CalTech using gold and silica.

Apple's patent seems to indicate this is what they were hoping for. Much more scratch resistance and publicity.


As for the idea of the "atoms closer together", one needs to know about "metallic bonding"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_bonding

The old Bohr theory with electrons arranged around the nucleus would agree with you and others, but using the more modern quantum model, Gold, silver , copper, mercury, and a few others are viewed with the outer electrons more in a cloud outside the cationic nuclear portion, allowing changes in the distance between atoms, especially if they are like gold - silver alloy.

Here is a peer reviewed paper from a site one would have to sign up for free to read, and I can't copy portions due to their program, but it indicates they have found the distance changes between gold-silver atoms ( Tolman length)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224808001_Molecular_dynamics_determination_of_the_surface_tension_of_silver-gold_liquid_alloys_and_the_Tolman_length_of_nanoalloys

Edited to add this article I hadn't reaad at the tome, having no interest in Apple.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-s-apple-alliance-for-metal-yet-to-bear-fruit

 

Where a man's vintage watch case weighs 7.5 g @ .750 Au, there's 5.625 g fine gold in scrap.
A case weighing 50% less @ .750 Au only should have 2.8 g fine gold.

A sleek AppleWatch might have less than 3 g (~$ 120.) gold scrap and sell for how much more than the "non-gold" model? A: The "Solid Gold" 18k models are $15k - $18k whereas the aluminum & steel models are priced from USD$ 350 - 500.

$17,700 for the AppleFoolsGold case, with a precious few grams fine Au, sounds about right to me.

 

Absolutely.