Golden Wedding Anniversary - Gold

Facts about Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (the Latin for aurum) and the atomic number 79.

Gold is a highly prized metal used for thousands of years as money, and made into jewelry. Gold occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks and in sediment deposits. It is a soft, shiny, yellow, dense and malleable. Modern industrial uses include dentistry and electronics. Gold used in dentistry is widely regarded as the safest form of restorative material, as well as the most successful.

Gold forms the basis for a monetary standard used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

It is the most malleable metal known, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of one square meter, or an ounce into 300square feet.

Pure gold (24k) is too soft for ordinary use and is hardened by adding metals such as silver, copper, and other metals to form an alloy. These alloys are then often used in jewelery, and as a standard for monetary exchange in various countries. When selling gold in the form of jewelery, it is measured in carats (k). A lower "k" value indicates a higher percent of copper or silver mixed into the alloy, 9k would be 9 parts gold to 15 parts copper or silver, with copper being the more commonly used metal of the two.

Since prehistoric times gold has been known and highly valued. It may have been the first metal used by man and was valued for ornamentation and rituals. Egyptians have been using gold from as early as 2600bc. Gold is also mentioned several times in the Old Testament.

Because of its historically high value, much of the gold mined throughout history is still in circulation in one form or another.