TILT: (Thu) That GOLD medal: Priceless ... or perhaps worthless or worth relatively little?

Gold Medal Is Priceless, But Metal Is Worth $215
Posted Aug 20, 08 8:49 PM CDT in Business, Sports

"(Newser) – Michael Phelps’ eight Olympic golds may be priceless, but they're not worth that much to a commodities trader, MarketWatch notes. This year's gold medals are made mostly of silver and coated with less than a quarter-ounce of gold, putting their value around $215. But people are, of course, willing to shell out much more for a piece of Olympic history.
A silver medal from the 2000 Games is listed on eBay with a starting price of $7,999.99. And in 2004, a Polish swimmer raked in more than $80,000 for charity when she auctioned off her gold medal. China's paying plenty for the medals, too: with record-high metals prices, it cost millions to make all 6,000 of them."

Source MarketWatch
Olympic medals more valuable than the metal
DUH!

"The International Olympic Committee requires the gold medal to contain a minimum of six grams of gold. Huang Ping, vice president of Shanghai-based China Banknote Printing and Minting Corp., the producer of the medals, said in an interview with China Business News that the amount of gold in each medal was strictly controlled at 6.0 to 6.1 grams.
Despite an effort to reduce costs, record-high metals prices have meant that producing 6,000 gold, silver and bronze metals for the 2008 Olympics and the Paralympics is costing China millions of dollars."