Gold flakes

I've seen gold flakes all over the internet, and I was wondering if they were actually valuable? They're all usually 24k and they're in little vials. And I've seen that people actually buy them. I'm just curious, what do people do with it? Because I heard that for some reason you can't melt it.

 

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I don't see why you can't melt it, but most places won't buy it if you do.

The vial you've posted seems interesting. There appears to be a silver colored flake on the left side about 1/3 the way up. I wonder if these are the result of someone shaving off gold plating.

What comes to mind when people mention gold flakes in vials are the various rip off auctions on FeeBay and in tourist traps that have a few milligrams of gold flakes suspended in a vial of water and they selling them as vials full of gold flakes. Unlike those, yours actually seem like a vial full of gold flakes.

 

If you can get an ounce of gold for $25, there is something not right. :rollling: http://www.ebay.ie/itm/1-TROY-OZ-31...385?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a201fc8e1
People use it for decorative purpose, I`ve seen buttons in museums you would think are gold but are gold flake (gilded).
Sometime they`re used as souvenirs (sometime see that at tourist offices here claiming they`re from Leprachauns pot of gold) etc...
Owen

 

You can put them in cinnamon schnaps and make goldschlager.

 

Hrmmm... If your gold flakes are anything like the gold flakes in the auction that Owen posted a link to, then there's probably not much gold in there. I never knew some of these gold flakes weren't actually gold. I assumed they were really thin flakes of 24k gold, but maybe they're really thin flakes of some other metal that have been electroplated with the world's thinnest plating of gold. Maybe that's why you shouldn't melt them down.

But... Maybe your vial is different and came from someone shaving the gold off of electronic connectors or something.

 

Don't bother... nothing more than sucker bait.

 

Yeah, it surprised me as well when I first learned it.

Gold does not really appear in nature as flakes, it appears as small grains, but those are different. Flakes like this are completely manmade and contain almost no gold at all. You can melt them, of course, but when you do you will find out there is a lot of mercury and base metal in there, and maybe a dollar in gold. They have about as much gold as a HSN gold plated state quarter, which means nearly none.

They look pretty though.

P.S. Please pay attention to when they say "do not eat!". This stuff can contain lead, mercury, arsenic, and other items. No joke, do not eat and for heavens sake do not have it anywhere near children. Or, better yet, just don't buy the junk.

 

Yeah, I knew it wasn't natural for gold to be in flakes, but I always thought it was at least pure gold produced through some process, maybe precipitating it out of a solution, or via electrolysis somehow.

I also knew there was hardly any gold in the vials, but I didn't know there was also other metals in there too. I would have thought if you had a gram of gold flakes, you had a gram of gold. In reality it seems if you have 1 gram of these gold flakes, you don't necessarily have 1 gram of gold. Probably more like 1 grain of gold and the rest is mystery metal.

...but I'm still optimistically hoping Melonsmash3r's vial of gold flakes is the exception...

 

Am I missing something here? So what you are telling me is that I should not buy a bag, mix it in with dinner, and tell the wife she's my princess worthy of eating "gold"? Or should I now slap disclaimer stickers on any type/form of metal sold so the buyer knows not to eat it?

Seriously... what am I missing here?

 

Goldschlager is a schnapps with real gold flakes in it:



So, it was suggested that he throw his flakes into some cinnamon schnapps to make his own Goldschlager. Considering that his flakes might not be pure gold, and might instead contain lead or mercury, it would not be a wise thing to do after all.

 

I am an expert (self proclaimed, yes, but recognized as an authority) and what you have are copper sheets that are microns thin and are gold plated, they are worth VERY little, if you melt them with a torch the result will be a blackened blob of copper

mlgdave

 

++ Some Indian sweets have a thin layer of silver on them, so gold and silver can be consumed.

 

Cool! Sounds like something I'd try once, anyway!

 

I have had the Indian sweets with both gold and silver layers. Conspicuous consumption to da max.

On a related note (about melting) I once worked with an instrument that had a platinum wire for hanging a weight on a quartz beam and a gold callibration weight of gold wire. We would burn the platinum wire off in as hot a flame as we wished and it would just glow white-hot. I made the mistake of "burning off" the gold wire once. Oops, now a small gold sphere.

 

Have you ever seen those shows with the most expensive food? I saw a sundae that cost thousands where they use edible gold and diamond flakes. How is it so you can eat gold?

 

Since gold is almost completely inert, it would pass through your body unchanged. Now if it were jagged pieces, it could puncture something on its way through and that wouldn't be too good.

 

It is (usually) real gold flakes in those vials. However the actual gold weight is virtually zero. Due to how malleable gold is, it can be flatted to basically one atom in thickness.

I saw a webpage once where they calculated the weight and value of the gold flake in a 26oz bottle of goldschlagger. I believe it ended up being worth something like 70 cents.

 

Ingesting too much silver will turn your skin blue.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22536...-blue-guy-shrugs-his-skin-color/#.UCgWgaH8uSo

 

The average human body is composed of
.000014% gold
.000001% silver
unless of course you drink alot of Goldschlager :thumb:

 

The reason you find 13-14 mg of 24k gold flakes is many people filter the flakes out of a 1liter bottle of goldschlager. (Which contains that exact amount.). It's worth maybe $0.75