Gold in Big Picture: Part 7 - Final

Gold bars are pictured at the Ginza Tanaka store in Tokyo October 23, 2009. (REUTERS/Issei Kato) 

Gold busts of (l-r) Chinese leaders President Hu Jintao, former president Jiang Zemin, late patriarch Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong, are displayed at a gold exhibition in Beijing, China on November 8, 2009. (WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images)

Gold in Big Picture: Part 6

Illegal miners search for gold on the mountain of Tumpang Pitu in Banyuwangi, East Java, Indonesia on November 21, 2009. The mine has been in operation since June 2009 and local villagers have began protesting because the waste produced by the mine is polluting the environment. (REUTERS/Sigit Pamungkas)

Molten gold and flux used to remove impurities glows red hot as it is melted in an induction melting machine at Dvir & Stoler Refining in New York, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 4, 2010. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg)

Gold in Big Picture: Part 5

Gold-plated Berlin Bear awards are lined up for the upcoming Berlinale International Film Festival at Noak bronze foundry in Berlin January 20, 2010. (REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch)

A carbon recovery circuit adsorbs gold in a sodium cyanide solution at the AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. Cripple Creek & Victor gold mine in Colorado on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009. (Matthew Staver/Bloomberg)

Gold in Big Picture: Part 4

A Caterpillar Inc. mining truck moves along a road at the AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. Cripple Creek & Victor gold mine in Victor/Cripple Creek, Colorado, on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Africa's largest gold producer, purchased Golden Cycle Gold Corp. in January 2008 to gain full control of this mining site, its only active operation in the U.S. (Matthew Staver/Bloomberg)

A Christie's employee looks at a creation "Relief Eponge" by Yves Klein on display at the auction house in London, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010. The gold sponge relief creation is to be auctioned at the "Post-war and Contemporary" sale on Feb. 11 with an estimated price of 5.7 to 8 million euros (US $8.2 to 11.4 million). (AP Photo/Sang Tan)

Gold in Big Picture: Part 3

A gold miner pushes a wheelbarrow to carry rocks which will be processed for gold in an artisanal mine in Abangares, north of San Jose, Costa Rica on December 9, 2009. Costa Rica is pushing to legalize a 600 informal miners of small-scale miners who scrape out tiny amounts of gold from abandoned mine shafts using dangerous and polluting techniques. (REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate)

Colombian gold prospectors mine for the precious metal on the river Dagau, Zaragoza province, Cauca, Colombia on November 17, 2009. About 8,000 gold prospectors work illegally on the Dagua river to support their families, local authorities said. (REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga)

Gold in Big Pictures: Part 2

Pedro Linares uses a calculator to determine how much the company he works for, Fast Cash Gold Parties, will pay for the gold jewelry that he is weighing on October 30, 2009 in Hialeah, Florida. As the price of gold remains high, the company is busy setting up these modern day Tupperware parties to buy people's unwanted gold in their homes. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Gold figurines on display in a shop window in Hong Kong on November 17, 2009. (MIKE CLARKE/AFP/Getty Images)

Gold in Big Pictures: Part 1

Hava Katz, the head of the national treasures of Israel's Antiquities Authority, holds up a 1,000-year-old gold coin minted in Egypt and dated 1,095 AD, supposedly brought to Jerusalem by Muslim pilgrims, during an exhibition at the Davidson Archeological center in Jerusalem's Old city on November 11, 2009. (GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images)

A statue of a bird of prey made of gold is pictured at a gold and silver exhibition at the Ginza Tanaka store in Tokyo October 23, 2009. (REUTERS/Issei Kato)

Rare Things from Gold

7. * Sushi Gold *

In the Philippines, a Manila-based chef creates entrée consists of five pieces of sushi luxe. Although sushi is not deviate from common materials, but the food is wrapped with thin bands of 24-karat gold and diamond Africa

Sushi Gold

With a price of $ 2,750 per share, make sure you do not leave the gold and diamonds in the trash


6. * Gold Facial *

Originally made in Japan, facial face with a layer of 24 carat gold. Very luxurious spa treatments are said to firm the skin and reduce wrinkles and sun spots. The cost for all of about U.S. $ 500


5. * Toilet Gold ***

Tourists from around the world will stop in Hong Kong to see the toilet Hang Fung's solid 24-karat gold. Throne shiny gold along with other equipment to complete your nature's call. With the cost of making about 5 million U.S. dollars, people will rely more're excited to take pictures there, rather than sit

Gold Vibrator

4. * Gold Vibrator *

Lelo Yva's 18 karat gold at a price of $ 2,580, making a living without a spouse to be very costly ...

Source: Healthy; Active


3. * Gold * Barbecue Grills

barbeque grill is made and also the 24-carat gold plated for $ 12.500.

White Gold - Gold Value

White gold is a mixture of gold and other metals that are white such as Nickel (Ni), silver (Ag), Palladium (Pd), Platinum (Pt) or Rhodium (Rh). There is a mixture of white metals will change color from yellow to white gold. Brilliant white gold color so it is necessary Plating (in the elderly) with Rhodium. Platingnya long it will disappear and the white gold needs to be rhodium plated again with brilliant color.

White Gold Ring

Platinum can also be used for jewelry. Platinum (Pt) is the white metal. In jewelery, the purity of platinum unit declared with Pt900, Pt950 and Pt1000. Pt900 platinum jewelry means that 90% (900 from 1000). Commonly used in jewelry are Pt900 and Pt 950, although there are also Pt 1000 (pure platinum). Platina 2 times heavier than gold. Price pergram is 2 to 2.5 times more expensive than gold. So for the same design (same shape), the Platina will ring 4-5 times more expensive than gold. Therefore, bracelet or necklace of platinum will be very rare because they are very expensive. Platinum color will never fade.

Gold Carat Related with Gold Value

Gold is now a trend. Whether it's for investment or for jewelry. Or both. Actually this is not a new story. But since the world are now familiar with the economic crisis and inflation, people began to look at gold as an investment media who (he says) the price is stable and always up.

Gold is a metallic element that is soft, shiny, yellow, heavy, malleable, and ductile. And the most important is the nature of the gold that is not easily react with other chemicals that make noble material, has the chemical symbol Au (from Latin Aurum), has the atomic number 79 and atomic weight 196.97. Its ISO code is XAU. Unit weight of gold is expressed in some units, such as grain, oz, and grams.

Gold Carat Chart

Carat is a constant used to mention the level of gold content. To know the gold, we must first know the term "levels" in gold. The level is the level of purity of the gold, or the amount of gold purity content. Levels are expressed as 24 karat gold. So the levels of 23 carat gold means purity level is (23/24) x 100%, or about 95.8%.

So when the levels of 22-carat gold with a weight of 15 grams of the pure gold content = 22/24 x 15 = 13.75 Grams.

For simplicity, the constants are available to determine the levels of carat unfounded. According to SNI (Indonesian National Standard) - No: SNI 13-3487-2005 carat standard as follows:

CARAT-grade gold

24 K = 99.00 to 99.99%

23 K = 94.80 to 98.89%

22 K = 90.60 to 94.79%

21 K = 86.50 to 90.59%

20 K = 82.30 to 86.49%

19 K = 78.20 to 82.29%

18 K = 75.40 to 78.19%

Gold Price - Gold Value

Like other precious metals, gold is measured in troy weight and grams. When alloyed with other metals, the term carat or karat is used to show the purity of gold present, with 24 carat gold is pure and lower ratings proportionally less. Purity and gold bar or coin can also be expressed as a decimal number ranging from 0 to 1, is known as the clarity Milli, such as 0.995 are very clear.

The price of gold is determined by trading in gold and derivatives markets, but a procedure known as the setting of gold in London, originating in September 1919, offers day-to-day reference price in the industry. The afternoon fixing was introduced in 1968 at a price when U.S. markets are open.

A Swiss-cast 1 kg gold bar.

Historically, gold coins were widely used as currency, paper money was introduced, it typically was a receipt to exchange a gold coin or bullion. The monetary system known as the gold standard, a certain weight of gold was given the name of the unit of currency. For a long time, the United States government, the value of the U.S. dollar, so troy ounce is equal to $ 20.67 ($ 664.56/kg), but in 1934 the dollar was devalued to $ 35.00 per ounce ($ 1,125.27 / kg). In 1961, it will be difficult to maintain prices, and agreed to manipulate the market to prevent further currency devaluation against increased gold demand, which pool of U.S. and European banks.

On 17 March 1968, the economic situation has caused the collapse of the gold pool, and two price system was established, where gold is still used to settle international accounts at the old $ 35.00 per troy ounce ($ 1.13 / g) but the price of gold on the private market was allowed to move; This two-tier pricing system was abandoned in 1975 when the price of gold was left to find a market level. Central banks still hold historical gold reserves as a store of value, although the levels are generally declining. The largest gold deposits in the world, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is 3% of the gold ever mined, as both laden U.S. Bullion deposit Fort Knox. In 2005, the World Gold Council estimated total global gold supply 3859 tonnes and demand to be 3,754 tonnes, which is the excess of 105 tonnes.

Rare Gold Nugget Gallery Part 1

Nuggets are gold fragments weathered out of an original lode. They often show signs of abrasive polishing by stream action, and sometimes still contain inclusions of quartz or other lode matrix material. A gold nugget is a naturally occurring piece of native gold. Watercourses often concentrate nuggets and finer gold in placers. Nuggets are recovered by placer mining, but they are also found in residual deposits where the gold-bearing veins or lodes are weathered. Nuggets are also found in the tailings piles of previous mining operations, especially those left by gold mining dredges.

Crystalline gold from Mina Zapata, Santa Elena de Uairen, Venezuela. Size: 3.7×1.1×0.4 cm

Relative sizes of an 860 kg block of gold ore, and the 30 g of gold that can be extracted from it. Toi gold mine, Japan.

Gold Mining - Gold Price is Raising

The city of Johannesburg located in South Africa was founded as a result of the Witwatersrand Gold Rush which resulted in the discovery of some of the largest gold deposits the world has ever seen. Gold fields located within the basin in the Free State and Gauteng provinces widely in strike and dip requiring some of the deepest mines in the world, with the Savuka and TauTona mines currently deepest gold mine in the world at 3,777 m. The Second Boer War of 1899-1901 between the British Empire and the Afrikaner Boers was at least partly over the rights of miners and gold gaining wealth in South Africa.

The entrance to an underground gold mine in Victoria, Australia

Other major producers are the United States, Australia, Russia and Peru. Mines in South Dakota and Nevada supply two-thirds of gold used in the United States. In South America, the controversial project Pascua Lama aims at exploitation of rich fields in the high mountains of Atacama Desert, at the border between Chile and Argentina. Today about one-quarter of the world gold output is estimated to originate from artisanal or small scale of mining.

Since the 1880s, South Africa was the source for a large proportion of the world's gold supply, with about 50% of all gold ever produced to be from South Africa. Production in 1970 accounted for 79% of world supply, which produces about 1,480 tonnes. Production for 2008 was 2,260 tonnes. In 2007 China (with 276 tonnes) overtook South Africa as the world's largest gold producer, the first time since 1905 that South Africa is not the greatest.

At the end of 2009, it is estimated that all the gold ever mined totaled 165,000 tonnes. Be represented by a cube with an edge length of about 20.28 meters. At $ 1600 per ounce, 165,000 metric tons of gold would have a value of $ 8.8 trillion.

Source: Wikipedia

Gold, Silver, Jewellery

Because of the softness of pure (24k) gold, it is usually mixed with base metals for use in jewelry, altering hardness and ductility, melting point, color and other properties. Alloys with lower caratage, typically 22k,, 18k 14k or 10k, contain higher percentages of copper, or other base metals or silver or palladium in the alloy. 

Unique Gold Jewellery

Fourteen and eighteen carat gold alloys with silver alone appear greenish-yellow and referred to as green gold. White gold alloys can be with palladium or nickel. White 18 carat gold containing 17.3% nickel, 5.5% zinc and 2.2% copper silvery appearance. Nickel is toxic, however, and its release from nickel white gold is controlled by legislation in Europe.

Fourteen carat gold-copper alloy is nearly identical in color certain bronze alloys, and both may be used to produce police and other badges. Eighteen carat gold containing 25% copper found in antique and Russian jewelry and has a, distinct though not dominant, copper cast, creating rose gold. Blue Gold is made with an alloy of iron and purple gold can be made by alloying with aluminum, although rarely done except in specialized jewelry. Blue gold is more fragile and therefore more difficult to work with when making jewelry.

Alternative white gold alloys are available based on palladium, silver and other white metals, but the palladium alloys are more expensive than those using nickel. High-carat white gold alloys are far more resistant to corrosion than either pure silver or sterling silver. Copper is the metal most commonly used base, resulting in a red color. Japanese Craft Mokume-Gane utilizing contrasting colors between laminated colored gold alloys to produce mapalamuting wood-grain effect.

Source: Wikipedia

Gold as Investment

Many holders of gold store it in form of bullion coins or bars as a Hedge against inflation or other economic interference. However, some economists do not believe gold serves as a Hedge against inflation or currency depreciation.

ISO 4217 currency code of gold is XAU.

Modern bullion coins for investment or collector purposes do not require good mechanical wear properties, they are typically fine gold at 24k, although the American Gold Eagle and British gold sovereign continue to be printed in 22k metal in historical tradition, and South Africa Krugerand, was first released in 1967, also 22k. The special issue in Canada Gold Maple Leaf coin contains the highest purity gold of any bullion coin, at 99.999% or 0.99999, while the popular issue Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin has a purity of 99.99%.

Several other 99.99% pure gold coins. In 2006, the United States Mint began production of the American Buffalo gold bullion coin with a purity of 99.99%. Australian Gold Kangaroos was first coined in 1986 as the Australian Gold Nugget but changed the reverse design in 1989. Among other famous modern coin Austria Vienna Philharmonic bullion coin and the Chinese Gold Panda.

Gold Price History 'till Jan 2012

Source: Wikipedia

Gold As Monetery Exchange - Price History

Gold has been widely used around the world as a vehicle for monetary exchange, either by issuance and recognition of gold coins or the amount of empty iron, gold or via conversion of paper instruments by establishing gold standards in which the total value of issued money is represented in a store of gold proposal.

Gold Standard Bar

The first gold coins of the Greek age hit in Lydia in 700 BC when approached for years. Talents of gold coins that are used during the period of Greek history prior to and during the life of Homer weighed between 8.42 and 8.75 grams. From previous preference in the use of silver, the European economy back erect minting gold as currency for centuries of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

However, production has not grown in relation to the world economy. Today, gold mining output declined. With the sharp growth in the 20th century, and increasing foreign exchange, the world gold trade market recommendations and they have become a small part of the whole market and currency exchange rate fixed to gold is no longer maintained.

At the beginning of World War I fighting countries move to fractional gold standard, inflate their currencies to finance the war effort. After World War II gold replaced by a system of currency conversions follow the Bretton Woods system. Konvertibilitas gold standard and direct from the currency to gold have been abandoned by world governments, replaced by fiat currency to replace them. Switzerland was the last country to tie the money currency with gold, but supported 40% of its value until the Swiss joined the International Monetary Fund in 1999.