With the Summer Olympics in Paris heating up, it’s time to take a closer look at what the coveted medals are actually made of and attempt to noodle out what they'd be worth if someone was silly enough to sell them for their melt value.
Conceived by luxury jeweler Chaumet and the Paris 2024 Athletes’ Commission, the gold, silver and bronze medals of the 2024 Olympics all feature a unique design element. At the center of every medal is an 18-gram hexagonal slice of iron from the actual Eiffel Tower. So, in calculating the value of the three types of medals, we needed to consider the current value of four materials, gold, silver, copper — and iron.
First, it's important to underscore that the Olympic gold medals are made mostly of silver. In fact, the 529-gram 2024 edition contains only 6 grams of gold, as mandated by the International Olympic Committee.
With the spot price for gold at about $2,391 per ounce, the gold in the medal is worth about $504.50. The iron slice of Eiffel Tower has tremendous symbolic value, but a melt value of about 1 cent. The rest of the medal is made from .9999 silver ($27.96 per ounce) with a value of $499.05. That puts the gold medal grand total at $1,003.56.
(If the gold medal was, in fact, fabricated from pure gold, its value would be $44,615. There was a time when Olympic gold medals were made of gold. The last ones were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, way back in 1912.)
The Olympic silver medal is made from 507 grams of .9999 silver ($500.04) and 18 grams of Eiffel Tower iron ($.01). Silver medal total: $500.05.
Crafted from 437 grams of copper at $4.09 per ounce and a penny's worth of Eiffel Tower iron, the bronze medal has a melt value of about $63.04.
The Paris Olympics medals measure 85 mm in diameter and have a thickness of 9.2 mm. They are all engraved on the edge with the name of the sport, discipline and event of the medallist.
Exactly 5,084 medals will be awarded at this year's Summer Games, but you can be sure that none of the athletes would consider selling an Olympic medal for its melt value. When these awards come up on auction, the results are usually startling.
For instance, back in 2013, billionaire Ron Burkle plunked down $1.46 million at SCP Auctions for a Jesse Owens gold medal from the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In 2019, Goldin Auctions offered for sale an Owens gold medal from the same Olympics. That medal was sold to an online bidder for $615,000.
Credits: Images courtesy of Paris 2024 / Ulysse Périer.