# What would have actually happened to the gold in the "Goldfinger" scenario? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 27, 2025, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889 "2025-02-27T21:56:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/41 "2025-03-05T09:56:58Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > As i noted in my earlier post, he would’ve been well aware of how tough it would be to heft a heavy ingot, but I still can’t believe that he wouldn’t try to take at least one, if only to brag that he had the only surviving un-irradiated gold bar from Fort Knox. Yeah, the entire plot happens _because_ he’s a gold-obsessed maniac. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/42 "2025-03-05T10:11:38Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > I quite liked “Diamonds are Forever” but doing cursory research it was released before I was born. I think I watched it at around age eight, mid 80s, so not the thorough cynical critic I am today. **Diamonds are Forever** was the first Bond film that I saw on its initial release (I had watched all of the others in theatrical re-releases before then, in those pre-VCR days, except for _On Her Majesty’s Secret Service_). So I could see how awful it was. There was enough good stuff to keep my interest, but it was no _Thunderball_ or _Goldfinger_ (which it was clearly trying to be). But the cheesiness (a secret car exit under and obviously fake cactus??), the logical lapses (Gas James Bond and stick him in a pipe being laid underground – that’s a Death Trap? I’m surprised they didn’t notice the body when they were heaving the pipe into place. God knows what other stuff got incorporated into that pipeline if they missed that on even a cursory inspection. Or the whole thing with Plenty O’Toole – they cut out all the scenes that explained why the hell she ended up dead in the pool), and the comic-book villains (The mobsters in Dick Tracy are more realistic; and Bambi and Thumper gave up WAY too easily. They literally kicked James Bond in the balls) all made me stop and think too much during the film. If there’s one thing a Bond film shouldn’t do, it’s give you an opportunity to think and realize how ludicrous it all is. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/43 "2025-03-05T10:57:50Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > While that may be true for a few people, the majority are talking about an audit, not just looking at it to make sure that vaults aren’t empty. right, because everybody knows that those are just lead-bars painted with gold!!! … do your own research! > [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](#): > > They do not unstack the gold bars, check the serial number on each one, and count them – that would take more than a year to complete. (There are somewhere between 30,000 - 40,000 gold bars in the inventory.) > They do actually do that for a few selected containers each year. I think it would take about 15 years for all of them to be done. sorry to say, but I am not buying your math here, unless you are saying that a team of committed auditors cannot audit more than 100 gold bars per day (pick up, check serial number, weigh, lay down). Granted, gold bars are heavy, but so are many other materials that routinely get moved from A to B (whilst checked their serial numbers) … [![](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRJGXZzPjCjDjAHQT-B4lrjGxcD3IDGcrnUfg&s) ](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRJGXZzPjCjDjAHQT-B4lrjGxcD3IDGcrnUfg&s) there may be other reasons, but logistics/bookeeping isn’t really limiting things … ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/44 "2025-03-05T14:32:29Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > by casting it into boy parts for his car. A car with boy parts: [![](https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/the-far-side-when-car-chasers-dream.jpeg) ](https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/the-far-side-when-car-chasers-dream.jpeg) I know it is just a typo, but a hilarious one. “Goldmember, he’s the man The man with the golden dick A leaden touch Such a cold member” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/45 "2025-03-05T15:07:50Z")
That would seem to be a car with girl parts. But I agree that was a great typo and I applaud your creativity in your follow-up. Well done Good Sir! ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/46 "2025-03-05T18:12:50Z")
Obviously Mr G-Finger knew all about weight as he had his Ford Falcon Ranchero specially modified to carry a Lincoln Continental filled with a million dollars of gold. From the factory it could only carry 800 lbs. I always wondered how his crew built the gold limousine. People seem to think the fenders and other parts were cast but I think they rolled out the gold into heavy sheet metal and hammered and dollied them into shape as was traditionally done with custom cars. Whatever method they used it was a lot of work. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/47 "2025-03-05T22:13:52Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > No, Auric Goldfinger would definitely know how much gold weighs – he was involved in smuggling gold, after all, by casting it into boy parts for his car. I was referring to Trump, not to Goldfinger. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/48 "2025-03-06T07:55:10Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I was referring to Trump, not to Goldfinger. Sorry – I misunderstood. But surely the man who has a gold toilet (among a great many other things) has handled Krugerrands and other forms of bulk gold, and ought to know that it’s unexpectedly heavy. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/49 "2025-03-06T10:55:38Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But surely the man who has a gold toilet … ought to know that it’s unexpectedly heavy. You think he lifts the lid himself? ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/50 "2025-03-06T15:05:31Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > People seem to think the fenders and other parts were cast but I think they rolled out the gold into heavy sheet metal and hammered and dollied them into shape as was traditionally done with custom cars. Plus sheet gold has no strength. At normal sheet metal thicknesses, you could dent the fenders with hand pressure. Maybe every metal body part was 1/2 inch thick. Could be! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/51 "2025-03-06T22:31:33Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But surely the man who has a gold toilet (among a great many other things) has handled Krugerrands and other forms of bulk gold, and ought to know that it’s unexpectedly heavy. Solid gold is heavy. Gilt can be as light as you’d like. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/52 "2025-03-06T22:57:29Z")
And colloidal gold is purple. Well, brownish-purple. Though I have no idea what I’d try to hide it as. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/53 "2025-03-06T23:26:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Solid gold is heavy. Gilt can be as light as you’d like. Yes, but Krugerrands aren’t gilt. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/54 "2025-03-07T06:55:44Z")
But to return to the original issue - I guess option 1 is the gold all vaporizes. (How much energy to vaporize a bar of gold?) Option 2 is that the blast is enough to melt (or hammer) into a coating the shape of the vault some of it. then how does it become radioactive? Would enough neutrons passing though actually make the whole radioactive through and through? Or is gold aslo useful -like lead -for shielding? Would there be a radioactive surface layer that could be machined off, then the inner core would be non-radioactive? ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/55 "2025-03-07T06:58:40Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Plus sheet gold has no strength. At normal sheet metal thicknesses, you could dent the fenders with hand pressure. Yeah I would assume the body panels were quite thick compared to steel sheet metal. But gold does harden as it is worked. It has to be annealed many times when rolling a thin sheet. But if you have ever seen the process of using an English Wheel to form sheets into fenders you can see it would be damn tough to do. The craftsmen have to pull the panel back and forth under the wheels for a long time to form it into complex curves. A normal fender might weigh 10 lbs. but a heavy gauge gold panel is another story. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2025, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/56 "2025-03-08T13:41:52Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Would enough neutrons passing though actually make the whole radioactive through and through? Or is gold aslo useful -like lead -for shielding? Yes to both. Shielding protects what’s behind it. It doesn’t protect itself. Stopping radiation means interacting with it, and interacting with neutron radiation often means being transmuted into something radioactive. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/57 "2025-03-11T18:10:21Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Except Goldfinger doesn’t want to part with any of his inventory: > > > _This is gold, Mr Bond. All my life, I have been in love with its color, its brilliance, its divine heaviness. I welcome any enterprise that will increase my stock- which is considerable._ > > He doesn’t care about money. [He loves goooooooooooolllld!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D1nK7q2i8I&t=153s) To me, that’s where the movie fails. Goldfinger doesn’t love gold because he can buy things with it; he loves gold just for its own sake. He estimates that blowing up Fort Knox will make the price of gold go up 10x, but that should be the last thing he wants. His gold will become more valuable, but that doesn’t matter. All he’s going to accomplish is to make it that much harder for him to get more gold. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/58 "2025-03-11T19:18:10Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Gert Fröbe, the actor who played Auric Goldfinger, was actually 50-51 during filming. He’s great in the film, a cheerful smile with murder behind the mask. I was disappointed to learn all of his dialog was overdubbed as his accent too heavy. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/59 "2025-03-11T19:29:33Z")
He also didn’t speak very much English, and apparently didn’t really understand the plot of the film, having never seen a Bond movie. (To be fair, this was only the third Bond movie, and the first to get much distribution outside of the the UK and United States.) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/60 "2025-03-11T19:34:31Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > To me, that’s where the movie fails. Goldfinger doesn’t love gold because he can buy things with it; he loves gold just for its own sake. He estimates that blowing up Fort Knox will make the price of gold go up 10x, but that should be the last thing he wants. His gold will become more valuable, but that doesn’t matter. All he’s going to accomplish is to make it that much harder for him to get more gold. If I absolutely had to remake a Bond film, I’d remake Goldfinger. It’s one of the best Bond films, and yet if you redid it right, you could make it significantly BETTER, somehow. Unlike many Bond films it’s a reasonably compelling story. And yeah, this is something I’d change, to make the plot make more sense. If you had a great Goldfinger, a perfectly cast guy, the part where he tells Bond of COURSE it’s not gold I love, it’s MONEY and POWER, that’d be terrific. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889.md?page=4)