Gold

[Marty_d]

What's the origin of "dore" in "dore bars"?  Is it from French - "d'or" would mean "golden"?

[pmccarthy]

Yes that’s right Marty and the French came from Latin aurum.

[onetrack]

A dore bar is just a roughly refined bar, straight out of the initial treatment process, that can be any colour from golden, to a dirty copper colour. I've seen some pretty horrible-looking dore bars.

 

The Mint uses a refining process that includes running chlorine gas through the molten gold in the crucible to refine to refine the gold to that incredible 99.99% purity for the world-wide accepted Mint bars.

 

Pure gold has a colour and a sheen that can't be mistaken, once you have been dealing with it, and know it.

 

There have been all kinds of stunts pulled to produce imitation "gold bars", to con buyers - but the weight is the giveaway. Gold is 70% heavier than lead, it's incredible how heavy a modest sized gold bar is.

 

Edited June 18, 2021 by onetrack

[octave]

Here is a video from the Periodic Video  YouTube channel.   This is Professor Martyn Poliakoff, he does a great series where he looks at the properties of each element on the periodic table.  This one is filmed in the vault at the Bank of England.   Near the end he does discuss the 2 different sizes of gold bar that they store there and has a go at lifting one.

 

Gold Bullion Vault - Periodic Table of Videos