![]() I don't know the exact figure, probably no one does, but I would wager that a very large fraction of the total amount of gold that has ever been mined in the history of the world is still in circulation today, sitting in a bank vault, hanging on a drug dealer's neck, or waiting patiently in a jeweler's workshop for its time to come into the light again. Old circuit boards with gold-plated contacts are sold for real money to people who strip and recycle the gold.Īnd of course jewelers never, ever, throw away anything! The smallest scraps are carefully collected and either reused to repair another piece, or sent off to refiners who separate out any alloying elements (typically silver, copper, or platinum) and return the pure gold to circulation. If you die with it in your teeth, chances are you won't go to your grave with it. It's so expensive, and so easy to recycle, that virtually none of it goes to waste. But still you see a lot of aluminum cans going in the garbage. Some recycling operators don't even want it because it can be more expensive to handle than it's worth.Ī larger fraction of aluminum gets recycled, because it's more expensive, and easier to reprocess into new things. Only a small fraction of the paper and cardboard in the world gets recycled. Here is the back side of this coin (click either picture to see it larger):Ĭlick the Sample Group link below to see many other coins made of various elements, or click the link to his website above if you want to buy one like this. I guess it was just cheaper and easier this way: No wasted gold. This is the only coin in the series with a ribbed edge, which comes about because, unlike the others that are stamped from blanks punched out of sheets, this one is stamped over the top of some other gold coin (in the rotation video you can actually make out faint traces of the date from the old coin, invisible to the naked eye). He's developed a line of coins struck out of various common and uncommon metals: They are quite lovely, and very reasonably priced, considering the difficulty of creating some of them. If you don't live in Los Angeles (and let's be realistic, who would want to?) you can buy one direct from me.ĭave Hamric sells element samples under the name Metallium. I visited them once and asked the store manager if they had been doing something unusual to use up so many of them, he said no, people just keep buying bunches of them. It's actually a science museum, and it has the distinction of having sold more of my photographic periodic table posters than any other museum (thousands and thousands of them). I really like the Griffith Observatory even though it's not an observatory (it's in Los Angeles, you understand). Isn't it wonderful that stuff like this actually works? The net effect is to move gold from the cool to the hot end and deposit it slowing into crystal shapes like this. ![]() At the 300C end gold reacts with chlorine to form AuCl 3, which travels over to the 500C end where it decomposes back into gold and chlorine. One end of the ampule is heated up to 300C, the other end up to 500C. Gold is placed in a sealed ampule with small amount of chlorine. It was created more or less for fun by Ivan Timokhin, using chemical vapor transport. This is a small but jewel-like crystal of purest gold. ![]() Thin platings of gold give you a lot of pretty for a little money.Īnother pretty vapor deposited gold crystal: See previous sample for details. These are cheap mall earrings I picked up while my daughter was getting her ears pierced. Seriously.Ĭlick here to buy a book, photographic periodic table poster, card deck, or 3D print based on the images you see here!Īn audio cable splitter, gold plated to ensure good contact. This one-ounce nugget of pure gold was found in Alaska in 1890 by Hogamorth Marion, while on a trip to sell shoes to Eskimos. Gold is one of the few elements you can find just lying on the ground. Pictures, stories, and facts about the element Gold in the Periodic Table H
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