Gold: Most Sought-After Precious Metal

Of all the different precious metals we can think of, gold is certainly the one most greatly desired. Since the beginning of recorded history, gold has been in use in many different works of art, coinage, and, of course, jewelry. Occurring as grains in rocks and in alluvial deposits, gold is shiny, soft, and dense. It is known to be the most ductile and malleable pure metal.

What makes pure gold especially attractive is its bright yellow color and luster. These characteristics are maintained as gold is chemically unaffected by air or moisture. Here are some of the properties of gold:

General:

• Chemical Symbol: Au

• Atomic Number: 79

• Category (as an element): Transition Metal

• Group/ Period/ Block (in the Periodic Table): 11/ 6/ d

• Atomic Weight: 196.966569(4) g.mol-1

• Electron Configuration: [Xe] 4f14 5d10 6s1

Physical:

• Density (near room temperature): 19.30 g.cm-3

• Liquid Density (at melting point): 17.31 g.cm-3

• Melting Point: 1064.18°C, 1947.52°F, 1337.33°K

• Boiling Point: 2856°C, 5173°F, 3129°K

• Heat of Fusion: 12.55 kJ.mol-1

• Heat of Vaporization: 324 kJ.mol-1

Atomic:

• Oxidation States: -1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

• Electronegativity: 2.54 (Pauling scale)

• Atomic Radius: 144 picometre

• Covalent Radius: 136±6 picometre

• Van der Waals Radius: 166 picometre

• Ionization Energies: 890.1 kJ.mol-1 (first), 1980 kJ.mol-1 (second)

The term "gold" was derived from "geolu", an Old English Anglo-Saxon word which means "yellow". Its symbol "Au", on the other hand, originated from "aurum", the Latin word for "gold". The exact period when gold was first discovered could be a subject of dispute. While some accounts point to the year 1848 when gold was discovered in California, history tells us that this precious metal was already being used extensively by the ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Chinese, and South Americans.

Throughout history, gold has served as a measure of value and a symbol of wealth. It is one of the coinage metals (along with silver and copper). It is used, customarily and legally, as a means of payment or a medium of exchange. Gram and troy weight are the units of measurement used for gold. To indicate the amount of gold present in, say, a piece of jewelry, the term "carat" is used. A necklace, for instance, that is 24 carats means that it is made of pure gold.

While gold's price is determined through trading in the derivatives and gold markets, its daily benchmark price is provided in a procedure called the London Gold Fix. In this procedure, the price of the precious metal is determined each business day on the London market. The fixing is done twice - once in the morning and another in the afternoon. The latter actually was introduced about 49 years after the procedure itself was introduced, as a means of providing a price when US markets are open.

This gold-price fixing procedure is done by the five members of the London Gold Market Fixing Ltd., namely The Bank of Nova Scotia, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank AG London, HSBC, and Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking. You can find even more detailed information about gold  from Hubpages.

Gold And Silver: The Two Precious Traditional Coinage Metals

Four transition metals make up group 11 of the periodic table of elements. All, except one, are considered traditional coinage metals. Qualifying this further, only two of these three traditional coinage metals are considered precious metals. These are gold and silver.

Gold and silver are rare and have high economic values. These things can't be said of copper, the other traditional coinage metal. Occurring in nature in metallic form, these two precious metals can be produced sans the use of extraction metallurgy.

Characteristics of gold and silver

These other characteristics make them both well suited for coinage:

• They are not radioactive.

• They are more ductile or softer than most other elements.

• They are less reactive compared with other elements.

• They have excellent luster.

• They have higher melting points compared with other metals.

The high-ductility property of gold and silver means they can be easily damaged as coins for circulation. Coins intended for circulation must be highly resistant to corrosion and wear. For this reason, gold or silver must be alloyed with other metals (example, manganese) so that the resulting coins will come out harder, more wear-resistant, and not easily damaged or deformed.

As numismatic items, gold and silver coins are made almost entirely of the precious metals, respectively. Current collectible gold coins (the 22-carat gold coins), for example, are made of 92% gold, with silver and copper comprising the rest. The coins in circulation in the United States prior to 1933 were made of 90% gold and 10% copper-silver combined. Canada's official gold bullion coin - The Canadian Gold Maple Leaf - is made of 99.999% gold; and so are these four other gold bullion coins:

1. British Britannia (with a face value of 100 pounds).

2. Chinese Gold Panda (with face values of 500, 200, 100, 50, and 25 Yuan).

3. Swiss Helvetia Head (with face values of 100, 20, and 10 Swiss francs).

4. Austrian Vienna Philharmonic (with face values of 100, 50, 25, and 10 euros).

Silver coins, like the minted coins circulated in the United States and other countries prior to 1965, were made of 90% silver and 10% copper. The American Silver Eagle and the Mexican Silver Libertad bullion coins, introduced in 1986 and 1982 respectively, were made of 99.9% silver and 0.1% copper.

Other notable silver bullion coins include the Australian Silver Kookaburra, Chinese Silver Panda, and the Russian George the Victorious.

Minting coins, whether gold or silver, always entails the risk of having the value of the metal used in the coin greater than the coin's face value. This is especially true in coins of low denomination. Because of this, there exists the possibility of some smelters taking gold or silver coins and melting these down for the scrap value of the precious metals.

A couple examples, in this regard, are worth mentioning here: US pennies have been made of copper-clad zinc since 1982, when they were before this time made of copper alloys; and British pennies were once made of 97% copper, but are now made of copper-plated steel.

As additional information, gold and silver both have a currency code of ISO 4217. You can find even more detailed information about gold and silver from Hubpages.