Are Olympic Medals Real Gold? | Precious Metal Content of Olympic Medals
At a Glance:
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- Olympic gold medals are not made with solid gold, but are instead primarily composed of silver.
- The last true Olympic gold medal was awarded at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden.
- On this page, learn about the precious metal content and value of Olympic metals.
Are Olympic Medals Real Gold?
Once every four years, the greatest athletes from around the world face off at the Olympics. Their victories and defeats always make international headlines as they fight it out on the world’s biggest stage. Aside from the athletes, there is one part of the Olympics that always seems to become a public obsession during the international competition: their medals.
It is easy to understand why. The winner of each Olympic event receives a gold medal, which is an item very few human beings will ever be able to say they own. Most of us will never even see an Olympic medal in person, much less have the honor of draping one around our necks.
Since the average person will never lay eyes on an Olympic medal, the prizes have been subject to intense speculation. The biggest question Olympic viewers have about the competition’s awards is a simple one. Are Olympic medals real gold? Olympic medals are not solid gold and are now made using silver and a small amount (6 grams) of real gold plating. The last solid gold Olympic medal was awarded in 1912 during the Stockholm Olympics.
Why are Olympic medals not made with real gold? What alloys are used to create Olympic medals? Clearly, there are quite a few unanswered questions about humanity’s most coveted athletic prizes.
On this page, learn about the precious metal content of Olympic medals, when Olympic medals stopped being gold, and the history of the Olympic medal.
Here’s What Olympic Medals Are Really Made From
Until 1912, gold Olympic medals were made of solid gold. After the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) mandated that future medals be minted primarily with silver and include a thin gold plating. Modern Olympic gold medals are made using 92.5% pure silver bullion and include a 6-gram plating of gold on the outside. In other words, Olympic gold medals aren’t really made of pure gold and include only a little bit of the valuable precious metal.
What are other Olympic medals made out of? Gold Olympic metals are composed of 92.5% silver and 6 grams of pure gold, but silver Olympic medals are really solid silver. As for bronze, Olympic medals awarded to third-place finishers are also true to their name. Bronze, composed of a combination of copper and zinc, is used to make Olympic bronze medals.
To recap, the precious metal content of an Olympic medal depends on which metal we’re talking about. Gold medals contain only a trace amount (6 grams) of real gold and are mostly made from silver bullion, but silver and bronze medals are really minted using silver and bronze.
When – And Why – Did Olympic Medals Stop Being Real Gold?
The decision to stop minting Olympic gold medals with solid gold came after the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden. Guinness World Records tracks the “last Olympic gold medal,” which was awarded to winning athletes at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Following the 1912 competition, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) eliminated solid gold from Olympic gold medals, replacing them with 92.5% silver and a thin 6-gram plating of real gold.
Why are Olympic medals not solid gold? The most likely reason why the IOC mandated that gold medals be minted with silver instead of gold is cost. Producing a solid gold medal is costly and time-consuming. As the price of gold climbed in the 20th century, it would have eventually become difficult for some host countries to produce enough gold medals to award to athletes.
Another possible reason for eliminating gold from Olympic gold medals is that the growth of the Olympics would have eventually made gathering enough gold nearly impossible. The first modern Olympics, the 1896 Olympics in Athens, hosted 43 distinct events. This number jumped to 95 medal-awarding events at the 1900 Olympics, and 110 events in 1908 before the 102-event 1912 Olympics. Because the number of events hosted at the Olympics had grown, it makes sense that the IOC decided producing solid gold medals for every winning contestant would quickly become too costly to justify.
In 2024, the Olympics included a whopping 329 events. An Olympic gold medal weighs approximately 529 grams, or 17 troy ounces. If the IOC decided to make each gold medal with solid gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics, France would have needed 5,593 troy ounces of the precious metal. Given the spot price of gold in August 2024, this would have cost the host country around $13,814,710. France is likely thankful that gold medals are no longer made with real gold!
Why Olympic Medalists Bite Their Medals
Every year, the Olympics produces thousands of photos of gold medalists. More often than not, the athletes are seen doing something strange with their awards – biting down on them! Why do Olympic medalists bite their medals? Olympians bite their gold medals as a reference to the old tradition of biting gold or silver coins to confirm their authenticity. Modern Olympic gold medals contain only a small amount of gold, so the biting pose featured in many medalists’ photos is merely for show.
Interestingly enough, biting a gold coin or medal was never a useful way to verify its authenticity. Biting a gold coin does nothing to help someone prove that their coin is legitimate, since the bite can’t tell an investor anything about the fineness/purity of the metal they’re biting.
Still, biting gold medals is a fun photography moment for Olympians – and a subtle nod to a tradition in the world of gold coinage and prospecting.
Value of Olympic Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals
Quantifying the value of an Olympic medal is difficult. In a sense, Olympic medals are priceless. Less than one-thousand Olympians will return home with gold, silver, or bronze medals after the 2024 Paris Olympics, and nobody will get another shot at earning their own medal until four years from now in 2028. Olympic medals also hold sentimental value, so it is uncommon to see them listed for sale on auction websites.
Old medals from Olympic games in the early 19th century are sometimes sold to collectors, and they can be quite pricy. In 2020, an gold medal from the 1908 Olympics sold for $33,275. Gold medals from pre-1912 Olympics were made from solid gold, so this particular medal has a higher gold melt value than modern medals.
Gold medals from the 2024 Olympics would be worth considerably less, at least where melt value is concerned. Modern gold medals weigh 529 grams and are composed of 92.5% silver and 6 grams of real gold. Given gold prices as of August 2024, the gold melt value of an Olympic gold medal is only around $476.5 USD. Since a gold Olympic medal also contains approximately 15.73 troy ounces of pure silver, an Olympic gold medal’s silver melt value in August of 2024 is around $440.5.
How much is an Olympic gold medal worth? Olympic gold medals contain approximately $476.5 worth of gold and $440.5 in silver, giving them a total melt value of $917 USD. Of course, this doesn’t represent the true value of an Olympic medal, given the rarity, collectability, and sentimental value of humanity’s most sought-after athletic prizes. Because so few athletes choose to sell their Olympic medals for cash, it’s unlikely we could reliably determine how much an Olympic gold medal would be worth at auction in 2024.
Final Thoughts: The Non-Gold Gold Medals of the Olympics
When we see an Olympian proudly bite into their gold medal, it makes sense to assume that they’re chomping down on genuine gold bullion. The truth is that Olympic gold medals produced after 1912 contain only 6 grams of genuine gold. Olympic gold medals, contrary to the name, are actually composed primarily of silver.
It may be a bit of a bummer to learn that American Olympians don’t get to bring actual gold home with them after scoring big on the international stage. However, given the 300+ games hosted at every modern Olympics, host countries are certainly happy that they don’t have to source several thousand troy ounces of the most precious metal to give winning athletes!
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About The Author
Michael Roets
Michael Roets is a writer and journalist for Hero Bullion. His work explores precious metals news, guides, and commentary.