# Are Olympic gold medals made of real gold?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-olympic-gold-medals-made-of-real-gold/517228>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 11, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-olympic-gold-medals-made-of-real-gold/517228 "2009-11-11T20:44:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![heavybuhbuh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@heavybuhbuh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heavybuhbuh)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-olympic-gold-medals-made-of-real-gold/517228/1 "2009-11-11T20:44:15Z")

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Are Olympic gold medals really gold, and if so, given the current market price for gold in the United States, can anyone tell me, what is the commodity value of Michael Phelps gold medals?

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**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-olympic-gold-medals-made-of-real-gold/517228/2 "2009-11-11T20:45:25Z")

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Wikipedia sez [no](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_gold_medal).

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**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-olympic-gold-medals-made-of-real-gold/517228/3 "2009-11-13T20:42:46Z")

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Since Wikipedia isn’t necessarily a reliable source, try [this article](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/olympic-medals-more-valuable-than-the-metal). It indicates that an Olympic gold medal has approximately 146 grams of silver and only 6 grams of gold.

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**Author:** ![EmAnJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@EmAnJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmAnJ)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-olympic-gold-medals-made-of-real-gold/517228/4 "2009-11-13T21:09:25Z")

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The Vancouver 2010 medals are plated (except for the bronze - which is actually made out of copper).

And additional interesting thing about them is that the gold, silver and copper used for them is recycled - they are recovered metals found in e-waste.

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**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-olympic-gold-medals-made-of-real-gold/517228/5 "2009-11-13T21:38:50Z")

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If you have extra gold medals just sitting around collecting dust, I know of this great little business that will buy them from you…