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Message:: [QUOTE="Clinker, post: 209002, member: 6229"]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: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gold_ingots.jpg" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gold_ingots.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gold_ingots.jpg</a>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: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Native_gold_nuggets.jpg" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Native_gold_nuggets.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Native_gold_nuggets.jpg</a> Here's an image of the largest Gold nuggest found in America!: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stringer156_nugget.jpg" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stringer156_nugget.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stringer156_nugget.jpg</a> 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 [/QUOTE]

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