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Here’s a riddle: What looks just as stunning on your teeth as it does being chewed between them?

From the world’s most dazzling “grillz” to the world’s most decadent desserts, it’s gold – and it’s a commodity that’s been a subject of endless wonder, envy, intrigue and deception since it was first found by humans on this planet.

Here, we’ve collected some fanciful, entertaining, inspiring and often, hilarious stories and pictures about the things that gold will make people do. We hope that you’ll enjoy browsing the pictures and articles here, and that this little cache of information enriches your understanding a bit about gold and its value. After all, check out some of those teeth – and the price tags of some of those desserts! – and you’ll see that people will do some crazy things over gold. But at GoldKit.com, we assure you – we never will.

 

All Up in My Grillz

04/15/2008

Grillz were originally known as a status symbol of money and success. Nowadays, anyone from a hip hop Emcee to your Grandma is looking to buy a grill and there are a variety of styles to choose from. Rapper Flavor Flav has won our attention with his mouth full of glittering gold. Rumor also has it that Johnny Depp was sporting his grill at the Oscars. After Nelly’s single, “Grillz”, was released in 2005, mouths full of platinum and gold were popping up everywhere. Unfortunately, not everyone can pull off this latest jewelry fad. Maybe it is having the right attitude and confidence to make a certain style work. Please put your money where your mouth is as I introduce to you THE 25 WORST GRILLZ on the web.

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Five Gold Myths

03/25/2008

Gold can make people do some crazy things – and believe some crazy un-truths. Here, five of the most common, sometimes-comical myths about gold and the facts (and rumors!) behind them.

Myth # 1: A piece of pure gold the size of a matchbook can be pounded flat until it is large enough to cover a regulation-size tennis court.
Fact: Believe it or not, this one is widely regarded as true. Gold is the most malleable and ductile of all metals, able to be pounded (by professionals, skilled at their trade) to a thickness of millionths of an inch. This ultra-light, ultra-thin product is known as gold leaf, and is hundreds of times thinner than foil. Pounded as thin as possible, a matchbook-sized piece of pure gold would theoretically cover the area of a tennis court – a claim that even the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters is wary of tackling. On their official website, MythBusters cites it as one of 10 myths they would never investigate (because of the cost associated with acquiring the requisite matchbook-sized piece of pure gold). The show does partially amend their refusal: they will happily “bust” that myth, so long as someone donates the gold!

Myth # 2: Gold comes in various colors: white gold, yellow gold, rose gold…
Fact: Sorry, Rainbow Brite, but gold comes in only one hue: gold. Colored gold is actually an alloy (a mixed metal compound) crafted by mixing pure gold with silver, platinum, copper, aluminum or iron to create a palette more varied than the natural yellow hue of gold alone.

Myth # 3: All currency is backed by gold.
Fact: Not even close. U.S. currency hasn’t been directly correlated to gold since 1933, and in 1971 the world’s currencies followed suit. Interestingly, this hasn’t affected the value of gold; unlike stocks and bonds, whose rate of interest depends on the market, gold has appreciated in value at a rate greater than 33% annually, making it one of the safest and surest investments in the world – and one of the most lucrative investments to “cash in” when the market is high. Note: As was recently noted in a segment on Good Morning, America!, the value of gold is at an all-time high, making this an extraordinary time to turn Gramma’s old brooch into your new vacation fund!

Myth # 4: Gold is opaque.
Fact: Yes and no. Generally speaking, gold is an opaque material. But because of its high level of malleability (see Myth # 1), gold can be pounded thin enough to allow light to pass through. Light coming through gold leaf will appear bluish-green, because gold is highly reflective of the colors at the yellow and red end of the spectrum of light.

Myth # 5: You can tell if a piece of gold jewelry is real by biting it. Fact: Maybe, but don’t tell your dentist we said so! The truth is that gold’s relative softness as a metal makes it susceptible to tooth imprints; the human jaw is strong enough and human teeth hard enough to dent gold, and the more pure the gold, the more easily it can be dented. Clever jewelers have developed a way of cheating this test, though – painting lead with a gold color, because lead is equally soft. Of course, biting lead jewelry is a particularly bad idea; lead poisoning is so 19th century.

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Sometimes You Just Need A Fresh Start

03/20/2008

Such was the case of Ian Usher, a British man who recently went through a divorce. Tormented by memories of his former wife while living in the home they used to share, surrounded by the belongings they had accumulated over the course of their marriage, Usher found himself unable to cope with the profound changes in his life without finding a way to wipe the slate literally clean. And that he did – by putting his home and all its contents up for sale on the Internet.

At www.alife4sale.com, Usher is offering for auction his home, belongings, and even his job as he endeavors to build a new and exciting life for himself.

While Usher’s approach could be called, well, a little extreme, the motive behind it is not uncommon. Many of us find ourselves encumbered by the burden of belongings that no longer have any meaning in our lives – items that take up unnecessary space, or that remind us of times gone by, and not in a good way. Perhaps they’re items like Usher’s – relics of a past life that can be said, with finality, to be over. So why are so few of us reluctant to do just what Usher did and cast aside useless trinkets?

1. We need their value. Note that Usher didn’t just rid himself of the offending property; he sold it, converting painful past to hopeful future. Think of old engagement rings, or that prized brooch that belonged to a beloved relative who has since passed on. These things have a value more worthy than their melancholy emotional one.
2. We prize our anonymity. One obvious but perhaps unwelcome side effect of putting your life up for sale on the Internet: an overwhelming loss of personal privacy. Whether we don’t want to offend someone by selling a gift they once gave us (that necklace that just isn’t you) or don’t want to admit to so much as owning the property in question (“Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time!”), being able to sell without revealing our identities might encourage more of us to take the kinds of steps that Usher did. Though, maybe on a smaller scale.
3. We know they have meaning. Often, though, we’ve forgotten what that meaning ever was, and we save our belongings as a means of assuaging the guilt that sometimes comes with forgetting.

There is a lesson to be learned from Ian Usher, though maybe not the one that first comes to mind. Perhaps the lesson appurtenant to his story isn’t that you can ever really wipe your slate clean. Perhaps it’s that, given appropriate compensation, a measure of privacy and a way to give old items a new meaning, there is a graceful and life-affirming way to let our old belongings go. To exchange, for example, old jewelry and use the money to start a vacation fund. Suddenly, that mate-less earring and broken chain have become vivid new memories – and taken on a whole new value. Isn’t there something you’d like to just let go?

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