Is the medal gold? November 25 2016, 0 Comments
Any school learner will wear a medal with pride. Medals are awarded for both academic achievement, for excellence in the gymnasium or winning on the sports field. Traditionally, the gold medal was the most coveted award as it was both a sign of being the best at your discipline and it was also a valuable asset.
As a high value item, there was always the possibility that the heavy ‘gold’ medal was, in fact, not gold at all. It may have been replaced with a gold-plated, lead replica that had very little financial value, while the medal makers ran away with the gold. Have you noticed the tradition of checking the medal by biting it to see if the gold is, in fact, gold? Well, it would be more correct to say that they were checking to see if the medal was made from lead. Lead is much softer than gold so if a tooth mark was noticed on the medal after biting it, they could be sure it was not gold. This could have developed into another sort of competition! Today, most medals are not manufactured from solid gold but the colours gold, silver and bronze remain to signify first, second and third place!