So Rare, Only 20 Percent Has Been Discovered

I ended up watching a movie that came on TV the other day – Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson in “Die Hard With A Vengence”. Willis is a New York City detective and he ends up stopping a scheme to steal billions of dollars in gold. I always thought most of this country’s gold was held at Fort Knox in Kentucky, but it turns out it’s held at the Federal Reserve Vault along Wall Street in New York City. Interesting though that most of the gold in that vault backs up the value of foreign accounts – it doesn’t even belong to the United States.

Gold is so rare that most of it discovered in human history is still in circulation. Gold has been found on every continent in the world and it’s believed that 80 percent of the world’s gold hasn’t been discovered yet.

The largest piece of gold was found in Australia in 1869. It was a chunk nearly one foot by two feet and weighed about 140 pounds.

Gold is so soft and pliable it can be stretched into sewing thread and just an ounce of it can be stretched into a string 50 miles long.

Gold never rusts and never irritates the skin. If a piece of gold jewelry does irritate the skin it means it’s been mixed with some other metal.

The Olympic gold medals awards in 1912 were solid gold. The ones being awarded this year are gold covered.

SOURCE: randomhistory.com