I’m not surprised although I wonder if we’ll just take the gold some time as our president has hinted at removing the Colombian president in recent months.
Some of the article was interesting but it wasn't until the very end that the author mentioned this key point:
It has not cut off foreign gold; doing so, she said, would make it impossible to meet demand.
In any case, unless the gold is from freshly mined metal, the gold could have had a prior incarnation dating back years, decades, centuries, or millenia. It could have spent time as a Roman aureus two thousand years ago, a king's crown in Medieval times, or a Cartier brooch in the Roaring Twenties. It might have had some dark history during the Nazi era, or been part of a tyrant's stockpile.
Gold is not a disposable metal and it never has been. It has always been valued and recycled.
As far as I know, rules for American gold or silver coins being made from new mining output were intended to support the US mining industry, not necessarily to address other issues in the world in regard to mining conditions. Those might be important considerations, but I don't think they were a primary motivation when the bullion coin programs were established.
@Project Numismatics said:
Thanks for posting. Disgusting on many levels and plenty of blame to go around.
Makes one wonder how many other goods that are “Made in America” have similar supply chain issues.
Also curious about the Mint’s supply chain for other metals.
Outside of cheeseburgers, bullets and bottles of pop there is nothing made in 'Merica™ anymore. RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
Retiring at 55, what day is today?
@YQQ said:
begs a laymans question:
can a DNA test detect the origin of the metal?
H
If somebody maintained a reference library of trace metals found in different parts of the world it might be possible, but I suppose that this would only result in the crooks salting melts with trace elements found in American-mined gold.
Many years ago somebody told me that John J. Ford used to buy up low grade pre-1873 S-mint $20's to use as base stock for the territorial gold pieces that he and/or Paul Franklin are alleged to have fabricated, because they contained trace elements appropriate to California gold. I have no proof that this was actually done, but it would have made sense.
Numismatist. 54 year member ANA. Former ANA Senior Authenticator. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and ANA Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Author of "The Enigmatic Lincoln Cents of 1922," Available now from Whitman or Amazon.
@YQQ said:
begs a laymans question:
can a DNA test detect the origin of the metal?
H
Metals don't have DNA
That is not entirely accurate. They are able to trace gold to a degree as they did with the famous gold heist in the UK decades ago.
"Gold can be traced back to its source mine or production batch through its metallurgic fingerprint, which involves analyzing the unique combination of trace elements and impurities present in the metal. While gold is often purified, tiny, characteristic amounts of other elements—such as silver, lead, copper, bismuth, and platinum—remain, varying according to the geological source of the ore and the refining process."
In Columbia, Sudan and elsewhere this mining is very, very toxic. As a worker in a coin shop told me, when someone brought in a weather station with mercury, he said "...get that thing out of here!" Once you have mercury and other toxic metals in your body it is very hard to get them out.
@YQQ said:
begs a laymans question:
can a DNA test detect the origin of the metal?
H
Metals don't have DNA
That is not entirely accurate. They are able to trace gold to a degree as they did with the famous gold heist in the UK decades ago.
"Gold can be traced back to its source mine or production batch through its metallurgic fingerprint, which involves analyzing the unique combination of trace elements and impurities present in the metal. While gold is often purified, tiny, characteristic amounts of other elements—such as silver, lead, copper, bismuth, and platinum—remain, varying according to the geological source of the ore and the refining process."
It is 100% accurate. Trace metals are not "DNA"
Jeesh
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
@YQQ said:
begs a laymans question:
can a DNA test detect the origin of the metal?
H
If somebody maintained a reference library of trace metals found in different parts of the world it might be possible, but I suppose that this would only result in the crooks salting melts with trace elements found in American-mined gold.
Many years ago somebody told me that John J. Ford used to buy up low grade pre-1873 S-mint $20's to use as base stock for the territorial gold pieces that he and/or Paul Franklin are alleged to have fabricated, because they contained trace elements appropriate to California gold. I have no proof that this was actually done, but it would have made sense.
It would not be possible per the article's details because the gold is all coming from mixed melts.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Gold is, effectively, fungible - one piece of gold is just as good as any other, and functionally indistinguishable from any other piece. Certainly once it's refined to .9999 fine, trying to chemically analyse that .0001 for trace elements to try to prove the origin of the gold is way more trouble than it's worth, especially if the gold is of "mixed" origin. You might be able to chemically determine that a certain specific piece of gold came from a Colombian gold mine, but you could take a lump of gold from Colombian drug cartels, another lump from an African dictatorship, and another from a Nazi holocaust loot hoard, mix and melt everything together into one big lump of gold, and no-one would ever be able to tell that's where it came from. The only intrinsic proof of "origin" of gold bullion is the form it's stamped into, and gold is ridiculously easy to melt and re-shape.
There's an awful lot of "just trust me, it's all good" in the gold trade. The criminals, warlords and dictators all know this, which is why they like to fund their operations with things like illegal or stolen gold and gemstones. Gold is, essentially, a self-laundering form of money.
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
@YQQ said:
begs a laymans question:
can a DNA test detect the origin of the metal?
H
Metals don't have "DNA"
Have you ever watched Oak Island?
No. But that doesn't change the fact that DNA is a specific chemical compound found in living beings not in rocks or metals unless you bleed on them. And, even if you bleed on them, the DNA would be destroyed by the melt of the gold and also carry no relationship to the source of the gold itself only the source of the bleeder. I'm really not sure why a simple scientific fact is being debated here as though there is any wiggle room. You can do a "DNA test" (OP) on the blood on a gold amulet, you can't do a "DNA test" on the gold itself BECAUSE GOLD DOESN'T HAVE DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
thanks guys
I had NO idea about all this.
One more bUT:
before XRF was "invented" how was it doe to determin contents and types?
Is the " Gold DNA test" maybe not that far away timewise? just thinking...
OR has it already been developed and is "locked away" for good, as the big GOV do not want it?
just simply a maybe not so impossible fantasy.....?
@YQQ said:
thanks guys
I had NO idea about all this.
One more bUT:
before XRF was "invented" how was it doe to determin contents and types?
Is the " Gold DNA test" maybe not that far away timewise? just thinking...
OR has it already been developed and is "locked away" for good, as the big GOV do not want it?
just simply a maybe not so impossible fantasy.....?
Prior to XRF, the tests were either based on radioactivity or destructive (isolate the trace metals).
I don't know what you mean about "Gold DNA test". All gold is identical and it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to determine a source for GOLD. Trace metals, which are NOT gold but can be found mixed with it in nature, are occasionally helpful. But those are also usually useless for mixed melts and can even be useless for high purity refined gold from a single source because you will lose some of the other materials in the purification process.
You have a better chance to identify two samples from the same melt. But unless you are tracking from the source, you would have a much harder time identifying the source.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
As I recall, the gold for the American Eagle program was supposed to be newly mined U.S. gold, which should have a somewhat limited range of trace elements. A list could be made of trace elements that are never found in U.S.-mined gold, and purchases tested for those elements.
Numismatist. 54 year member ANA. Former ANA Senior Authenticator. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and ANA Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Author of "The Enigmatic Lincoln Cents of 1922," Available now from Whitman or Amazon.
@CaptHenway said:
As I recall, the gold for the American Eagle program was supposed to be newly mined U.S. gold, which should have a somewhat limited range of trace elements. A list could be made of trace elements that are never found in U.S.-mined gold, and purchases tested for those elements.
Don't forget that AGEs are alloyed with copper and silver and there's no restriction on the source of those alloys.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
@CaptHenway said:
As I recall, the gold for the American Eagle program was supposed to be newly mined U.S. gold, which should have a somewhat limited range of trace elements. A list could be made of trace elements that are never found in U.S.-mined gold, and purchases tested for those elements.
Don't forget that AGEs are alloyed with copper and silver and there's no restriction on the source of those alloys.
It's also refined which changes the ratio of trace elements. It's trickier than people think.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
It's always been a problem. I found this last week from the Mint Director's Report for Fiscal 1859 (published in 1860) while researching an upcoming preso for Coin Club:
-----Burton ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus") Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
@YQQ said:
Is the " Gold DNA test" maybe not that far away timewise? just thinking...
OR has it already been developed and is "locked away" for good, as the big GOV do not want it?
just simply a maybe not so impossible fantasy.....?
Gold alloys can be "fingerprinted" (that term is usually preferred to "DNA test", though both are technically inaccurate since there's nothing biological about the tests). For example, jewellers will usually add a small amount of titanium (typically around 1%) to their jewellery alloy, to make their gold products physically tougher and more durable without sacrificing much in either fineness or colour. Titanium was an element that was effectively unknown and unused in gold refining or alloying prior to the 1960s, and titanium cannot dissolve into gold "naturally", so detecting titanium in an allegedly ancient, mediaeval or early modern gold coin is certain proof that it's a fake. Detection of titanium has been useful in proving that certain counterfeit gold coins are indeed modern counterfeits.
Likewise, naturally occurring gold is never 99.999% pure, it always has within it various contaminants, trace elements in various quantities, which can be peculiar to the origin point of that gold. But there are only a finite number of possible contaminating elements (probably around a dozen or so). The difference between gold from different sources is not usually the presence or absence of elements, but the varying proportions of those elements - which is why, when you mix gold from different sources together, you end up with a list of elemental proportions that has been effectively randomized, and either points to a different source or to no source at all; you can't un-scramble eggs, and it's impossible to un-mix that gold again to find the individual sources. And if you refine out all of the impurities to 99.99% purity, then there's not much impurity left to do that measurement and the error in the resultant chemical analysis is going to be even greater.
Many chemical elements can have their provenances narrowed down by looking at isotope ratios. Gold, unfortunately, is rather unique among the heavy elements in having only one non-radioactive isotope (Au-197) and all of the radioactive isotopes have half-lives too short to be present in geological formations of naturally-occurring gold; all that an isotope study would prove is that the gold wasn't recently transmutated in a nuclear reactor.
TLDR: gold alloys can be "fingerprinted", pure refined gold cannot be, and the laws of physics aren't going to be changing to allow this to happen.
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
@YQQ said:
Is the " Gold DNA test" maybe not that far away timewise? just thinking...
OR has it already been developed and is "locked away" for good, as the big GOV do not want it?
just simply a maybe not so impossible fantasy.....?
Gold alloys can be "fingerprinted" (that term is usually preferred to "DNA test", though both are technically inaccurate since there's nothing biological about the tests). For example, jewellers will usually add a small amount of titanium (typically around 1%) to their jewellery alloy, to make their gold products physically tougher and more durable without sacrificing much in either fineness or colour. Titanium was an element that was effectively unknown and unused in gold refining or alloying prior to the 1960s, and titanium cannot dissolve into gold "naturally", so detecting titanium in an allegedly ancient, mediaeval or early modern gold coin is certain proof that it's a fake. Detection of titanium has been useful in proving that certain counterfeit gold coins are indeed modern counterfeits.
Likewise, naturally occurring gold is never 99.999% pure, it always has within it various contaminants, trace elements in various quantities, which can be peculiar to the origin point of that gold. But there are only a finite number of possible contaminating elements (probably around a dozen or so). The difference between gold from different sources is not usually the presence or absence of elements, but the varying proportions of those elements - which is why, when you mix gold from different sources together, you end up with a list of elemental proportions that has been effectively randomized, and either points to a different source or to no source at all; you can't un-scramble eggs, and it's impossible to un-mix that gold again to find the individual sources. And if you refine out all of the impurities to 99.99% purity, then there's not much impurity left to do that measurement and the error in the resultant chemical analysis is going to be even greater.
Many chemical elements can have their provenances narrowed down by looking at isotope ratios. Gold, unfortunately, is rather unique among the heavy elements in having only one non-radioactive isotope (Au-197) and all of the radioactive isotopes have half-lives too short to be present in geological formations of naturally-occurring gold; all that an isotope study would prove is that the gold wasn't recently transmutated in a nuclear reactor.
TLDR: gold alloys can be "fingerprinted", pure refined gold cannot be, and the laws of physics aren't going to be changing to allow this to happen.
But can't we just ignore the laws of physics to keep the discussion going?
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Comments
Thats an interesting read
Yes, very interesting.
mbogoman
https://pcgs.com/setregistry/collectors-showcase/classic-issues-colonials-through-1964/zambezi-collection-trade-dollars/7345Asesabi Lutho
This is wild that simply melting gold in the US makes it 'US origin'.
Seems like a lawsuit or penalties should be enacted here...
I’m not surprised although I wonder if we’ll just take the gold some time as our president has hinted at removing the Colombian president in recent months.
Some of the article was interesting but it wasn't until the very end that the author mentioned this key point:
In any case, unless the gold is from freshly mined metal, the gold could have had a prior incarnation dating back years, decades, centuries, or millenia. It could have spent time as a Roman aureus two thousand years ago, a king's crown in Medieval times, or a Cartier brooch in the Roaring Twenties. It might have had some dark history during the Nazi era, or been part of a tyrant's stockpile.
Gold is not a disposable metal and it never has been. It has always been valued and recycled.
As far as I know, rules for American gold or silver coins being made from new mining output were intended to support the US mining industry, not necessarily to address other issues in the world in regard to mining conditions. Those might be important considerations, but I don't think they were a primary motivation when the bullion coin programs were established.
Thanks for posting. Disgusting on many levels and plenty of blame to go around.
Makes one wonder how many other goods that are “Made in America” have similar supply chain issues.
Also curious about the Mint’s supply chain for other metals.
Outside of cheeseburgers, bullets and bottles of pop there is nothing made in 'Merica™ anymore. RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
Retiring at 55, what day is today?
begs a laymans question:
can a DNA test detect the origin of the metal?
H
Metals don't have DNA
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
If somebody maintained a reference library of trace metals found in different parts of the world it might be possible, but I suppose that this would only result in the crooks salting melts with trace elements found in American-mined gold.
Many years ago somebody told me that John J. Ford used to buy up low grade pre-1873 S-mint $20's to use as base stock for the territorial gold pieces that he and/or Paul Franklin are alleged to have fabricated, because they contained trace elements appropriate to California gold. I have no proof that this was actually done, but it would have made sense.
That is not entirely accurate. They are able to trace gold to a degree as they did with the famous gold heist in the UK decades ago.
"Gold can be traced back to its source mine or production batch through its metallurgic fingerprint, which involves analyzing the unique combination of trace elements and impurities present in the metal. While gold is often purified, tiny, characteristic amounts of other elements—such as silver, lead, copper, bismuth, and platinum—remain, varying according to the geological source of the ore and the refining process."
In Columbia, Sudan and elsewhere this mining is very, very toxic. As a worker in a coin shop told me, when someone brought in a weather station with mercury, he said "...get that thing out of here!" Once you have mercury and other toxic metals in your body it is very hard to get them out.
Metals don't have DNA> @HalfDime said:
It is 100% accurate. Trace metals are not "DNA"
Jeesh
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
It would not be possible per the article's details because the gold is all coming from mixed melts.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Well...TECHNICALLY, Colombian gold is still "American"
(yeah, yeah, I know...)
Have you ever watched Oak Island?
Gold is, effectively, fungible - one piece of gold is just as good as any other, and functionally indistinguishable from any other piece. Certainly once it's refined to .9999 fine, trying to chemically analyse that .0001 for trace elements to try to prove the origin of the gold is way more trouble than it's worth, especially if the gold is of "mixed" origin. You might be able to chemically determine that a certain specific piece of gold came from a Colombian gold mine, but you could take a lump of gold from Colombian drug cartels, another lump from an African dictatorship, and another from a Nazi holocaust loot hoard, mix and melt everything together into one big lump of gold, and no-one would ever be able to tell that's where it came from. The only intrinsic proof of "origin" of gold bullion is the form it's stamped into, and gold is ridiculously easy to melt and re-shape.
There's an awful lot of "just trust me, it's all good" in the gold trade. The criminals, warlords and dictators all know this, which is why they like to fund their operations with things like illegal or stolen gold and gemstones. Gold is, essentially, a self-laundering form of money.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded the DPOTD twice.
No. But that doesn't change the fact that DNA is a specific chemical compound found in living beings not in rocks or metals unless you bleed on them. And, even if you bleed on them, the DNA would be destroyed by the melt of the gold and also carry no relationship to the source of the gold itself only the source of the bleeder. I'm really not sure why a simple scientific fact is being debated here as though there is any wiggle room. You can do a "DNA test" (OP) on the blood on a gold amulet, you can't do a "DNA test" on the gold itself BECAUSE GOLD DOESN'T HAVE DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
thanks guys
I had NO idea about all this.
One more bUT:
before XRF was "invented" how was it doe to determin contents and types?
Is the " Gold DNA test" maybe not that far away timewise? just thinking...
OR has it already been developed and is "locked away" for good, as the big GOV do not want it?
just simply a maybe not so impossible fantasy.....?
Prior to XRF, the tests were either based on radioactivity or destructive (isolate the trace metals).
I don't know what you mean about "Gold DNA test". All gold is identical and it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to determine a source for GOLD. Trace metals, which are NOT gold but can be found mixed with it in nature, are occasionally helpful. But those are also usually useless for mixed melts and can even be useless for high purity refined gold from a single source because you will lose some of the other materials in the purification process.
You have a better chance to identify two samples from the same melt. But unless you are tracking from the source, you would have a much harder time identifying the source.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
The NY Times followed the article today with Canada also sourcing its gold from there; https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/world/canada/royal-canadian-mint-gold-drug-cartel-colombia.html
I would imagine that the total weight of cartel drugs that are used in the United States exceeds the weight and value of cartel gold.
As I recall, the gold for the American Eagle program was supposed to be newly mined U.S. gold, which should have a somewhat limited range of trace elements. A list could be made of trace elements that are never found in U.S.-mined gold, and purchases tested for those elements.
Don't forget that AGEs are alloyed with copper and silver and there's no restriction on the source of those alloys.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
It's also refined which changes the ratio of trace elements. It's trickier than people think.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
It's always been a problem. I found this last week from the Mint Director's Report for Fiscal 1859 (published in 1860) while researching an upcoming preso for Coin Club:
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
Gold alloys can be "fingerprinted" (that term is usually preferred to "DNA test", though both are technically inaccurate since there's nothing biological about the tests). For example, jewellers will usually add a small amount of titanium (typically around 1%) to their jewellery alloy, to make their gold products physically tougher and more durable without sacrificing much in either fineness or colour. Titanium was an element that was effectively unknown and unused in gold refining or alloying prior to the 1960s, and titanium cannot dissolve into gold "naturally", so detecting titanium in an allegedly ancient, mediaeval or early modern gold coin is certain proof that it's a fake. Detection of titanium has been useful in proving that certain counterfeit gold coins are indeed modern counterfeits.
Likewise, naturally occurring gold is never 99.999% pure, it always has within it various contaminants, trace elements in various quantities, which can be peculiar to the origin point of that gold. But there are only a finite number of possible contaminating elements (probably around a dozen or so). The difference between gold from different sources is not usually the presence or absence of elements, but the varying proportions of those elements - which is why, when you mix gold from different sources together, you end up with a list of elemental proportions that has been effectively randomized, and either points to a different source or to no source at all; you can't un-scramble eggs, and it's impossible to un-mix that gold again to find the individual sources. And if you refine out all of the impurities to 99.99% purity, then there's not much impurity left to do that measurement and the error in the resultant chemical analysis is going to be even greater.
Many chemical elements can have their provenances narrowed down by looking at isotope ratios. Gold, unfortunately, is rather unique among the heavy elements in having only one non-radioactive isotope (Au-197) and all of the radioactive isotopes have half-lives too short to be present in geological formations of naturally-occurring gold; all that an isotope study would prove is that the gold wasn't recently transmutated in a nuclear reactor.
TLDR: gold alloys can be "fingerprinted", pure refined gold cannot be, and the laws of physics aren't going to be changing to allow this to happen.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded the DPOTD twice.
But can't we just ignore the laws of physics to keep the discussion going?
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.