Olympic Gold Medals Have Not Actually Been Gold Since 1912

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Despite their name, Olympic gold medals are primarily silver. The last Games to award solid gold medals was Stockholm in 1912, and even those were not pure gold. Since then, the International Olympic Committee has stipulated that gold medals must be made from at least 92.5 percent silver and coated with a minimum of six grams of 24-carat gold. The decision to switch from solid gold was driven by the sheer cost of producing hundreds of medals per Games. The silver core also gives the medal its characteristic heft and density. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, each gold medal contained a piece of original iron from the Eiffel Tower set into the center — making them the most distinctive in recent history but no more gold than any other modern edition. The financial value of an Olympic gold medal in raw materials is typically around $800 to $1,000, a fraction of what they sell for at auction, where the prestige and story behind each medal drives prices into the tens of thousands of dollars or higher.