Some helpful gold and silver facts + key weights and measures
Fact: Gold is measured in Troy Ounces. 31.10348 grams make up one troy ounce.
Gold, silver, platinum and other precious metals are natural chemical elements. Despite mans efforts through time they cannot be manufactured – they are rare in the earths crust (the average concentration of gold in the Earth’s crust is around 0.005 parts per million) and rare in mined form above ground.
All the gold ever mined has been estimated to be between 150,000 and 160,000 tonnes which is only enough to create a solid cube 22 metres along each side. I personally believe the figure may be more than twice that figure because records have been incomplete and are only for modern times.
Gold’s chemical symbol is Au – an abbreviation of Aurum which is the Latin word for gold.
Fact: Gold is 70% denser than lead.
Silver’s chemical symbol is Ag – an abbreviation of the Latin word Argentum. The name for the element silver was derived from “seolfur” meaning silver from old english anglo-saxon.
Fact: Argentina is named after silver’s Latin name, Argentum.
Gold has a melting point of 1064 degrees Celsius and a boiling point of 2808 degrees Celsius. The melting point of silver is 961.93 degrees Celsius.
Fact: Silver is harder than gold.
Troy ounces and grams are commonly used to measure precious metals. You may even find reference to grains (currency), pennyweight or avoirdupois ounce / pound so here are some helpful conversion facts.
Resource statements by mining companies generally refer to grams or Troy ounces per ton of ore when reporting on platinum group metals, gold or silver content.
Conversion Measurements
1 gram = 15.4324 grains
1 gram = 0.03215 troy ounces
1 gram = 0.643 pennyweights
31.10348 grams = 1 troy ounce
1.55517 grams = 1 pennyweight
28.3495 grams = 1 avoirdupois ounce
1 kilogram = 32.15076 troy ounces
1 pennyweight = 24 grains
1 pennyweight = 0.05 troy ounces
20 pennyweights = 1 troy ounce
14.583 troy ounces = 1 avoirdupois pound
1 troy ounce = 1.09714 avoirdupois ounce