Gold is one of the most recycled substances of all. It’s quite possible that the gold contained in the first nuggets found over 6,000 years ago still exist today, melted and recast into a contemporary piece of jewelry or as the filling in your teeth.
Worldwide, wedding rings are probably the single biggest gold jewelry item. One of the traditions of the wedding ring on the third finger, left hand, is found in ancient Egyptians writings that describe the third finger as being connected by an artery to the heart. The innermost coffin of the three used to bury the young Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen is probably the biggest gold object to have survived from antiquity. Uncovered in 1922, it represents 2,448 pounds of 22 karat gold, decorated inside and out.
In the western world, the proportion of gold is expressed in karats, using a scale of 24 karats as being 100% pure gold. If a piece of jewelry is made of 18 karat gold, it is 18 parts gold and 6 pats other metal, usually silver or copper. Gold is one of the most ductile and malleable of all metals. One ounce can be stretched into a wire five miles long or in a sheet so thin it covers 100 square feet. Gold has extremely low resistance to electric current and won't corrode or tarnish. A touch-tone telephone has 33 gold contacts.
Source: Hy-Grader 1/05, via Pueblo Rockhounds 5/06, via Rockhound Ramblings 7/06.
