Is there any wonder why metal detectors are so popular in the UK? This list of six found treasures are all from the British Isles. Shown here is the treasure called the Hoxne Hoard, uncovered in Suffolk and valued at £1,750,000! Peter Whatling and Eric Lawes found it while searching for a lost tool in 1992. Link -Thanks, Danny!

(Image credit: Mike Peel)

Designer Yogi Proctor coated a Canon copier in gold. It is, sadly, no longer functional. So it may not be a good buy if you’re in the market for a new copier.

When asked to explain why he made it, Proctor cryptically responded:

Well, I happened to re-hear the famous JFK speech on the radio that was actually written by Ted Sorensen, who himself modified it from a Khalil Gibran speech. It goes “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

I knew exactly what I could do. I could make a golden photocopier that doesn’t make any copies. Art is great like that. You make it to share with people.

Link -via Born Rich | Photo: Yogi Proctor

Ah, the iconic Atari 2600! It was the first mass-produced home video game console. Back in 2009, Urchin Associates, an Australian art collective, covered an Atari 2600 console with gold. Link -via Technabob | Photo: Urchin Associates

The streets of Nanjing, China, may not be paved with gold, but here’s the next best thing: a bus covered with 24-karat gold leaf.

The distinctive "Golden Bus", which began rolling on April 25th of 2011, is the centerpiece of a rather expensive promotion by a Nanjing jewelry store… expensive meaning 200,000 yuan (about $30,800). Usually bus promotional ads involving an entire bus cost 1/10th as much.

Inventor Spot has the story: Link

Gohel isn’t a street cleaner. She’s a dhul dhoya, a dust washer. And not just any dirt. Although the streets in India aren’t exactly paved with gold, a few in Ahmadabad are at least flecked with it.

Motivating her are the estimated 5,000 gold and silver shops in this western city. As the 40,000 workers from the shops come and go, flecks of gold fall from their hair and clothes, to be scooped up by Gohel and other dhul dhoyas. Some enterprising collectors even follow workers home, raiding their sewer pipes for the muck from their showers. [...]

Once she and her mother separate the gold-specked dirt from the betel nut wrappers, cow manure, stained newspapers and other trash, it’s sold for about $8 per bag.

Mark Magnier of the Los Angeles Times has the story: Link

The hotel’s general manager, Hans Olbertz, was quoted in local newspapers Thursday as saying the 43-foot (13-meter) faux fir has 131 ornaments that include gold and precious stones such as diamonds and sapphires.

Olbertz told Dubai’s Gulf News that he worked with one of the jewelers in the hotel to create a “unique tree and experience for our guests this year.” The hotel may later contact Guinness World Records for a possible bid as the world’s most expensive Christmas tree.

No, most people in Abu Dhabi do not celebrate Christmas, but why let that little detail get in the way of going for a Guinness record? Link -via J-Walk Blog

So we ask Sanat: If we could run the clock back and start history again, could things go a different way, or would gold emerge again as the element of choice?

“For the earth, with every parameter we have, gold is the sweet spot,” he says. “It would come out no other way.”

Link via Gizmodo | Photo by Flickr user Shiny Things used under Creative Commons license

A business operating from the Burj Al Arab luxury hotel in Dubai offers temporary tattoos made from gold:

Starting at AED200 for a small gold tattoo and AED400 for an equivalent platinum one, the temporary tattoos have been available in the emirates for just two months.

Originating from Japan, the tattoos are created from 99 percent gold or platinum foil that is applied directly to the skin. Application takes around 10 minutes.

200 AED is worth about 54 US dollars.

Link via Born Rich | Photo: Arabian Business

We’ve brought you some weird vending machines before, but this takes the cake! When you feel the need to buy gold, but don’t want to drive all the way to the bank or to your broker, just use this handy dandy gold vending machine, from a business called GOLD To Go. The first one was installed earlier this year at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Of course. Link -via Laughing Squid

The 100-kilogram Gold Maple Leaf was, in fact, recognized by Guinness World Records in October 2007 as the planet’s largest gold coin.

The four sold that year cost the buyers more than $2.3 million each based on the coin’s intrinsic value at the time. The $1-million coin contains 3,215 troy ounces of gold.

But the price of gold has nearly doubled since then. Earlier this week, it reached a record high of $1,254.50 U.S. per ounce. Some analysts have predicted the price could hit $1,500 U.S. within a year.

At Friday’s price of about $1,230 U.S. per ounce, the metal value of the coin to be sold in Austria was just over $4 million Cdn.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Dorotheum

A new ATM in a luxurious hotel in Abu Dubai dispenses little gold bars and coins to customers. It’s updated every ten minutes to stay current with prices on the world gold market:

The exterior of the machine is coated with a thin layer of gold and offers customers 320 items to choose from, ranging from gold bars that can weigh up to 10 grams, to customised gold coins.

Gold rates are constantly updated inside the shiny machine in the hotel’s lobby, courtesy of a built-in computer connected to a dealer which sells gold online

Link

Everybody loves a good treasure hunt, right?  Well, here are five buried treasure that is still buried out there somewhere.  From pirates to gangsters, they all left riches in an undisclosed, but much theorized, location.

The most talked about location of Kidd’s treasure is up the Connecticut River somewhere on Clarke’s Island. Rumor has it that the gold has to dug up by three people, in complete silence, during a full moon with the moon directly overhead. There’s a legend that three men once followed all these directions to the very end. But once the treasure chest started to be uncovered, one of the yelled “You’ve hit it”. Upon hearing a direct violation of the rules, the chest promptly sank into the sand and out of reach.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by sish2000.

Then recently, while doing research about a 1924 Mercury-head dime, she remembered the penny and typed “gold penny” into Google, which returned information on science experiments to give a penny a gold color. She added “1970” and found an item about how Mr. Daws had put a 18-karat gold penny, dated 1970 with no mint mark, into circulation. It was heavier and smaller than a real penny.

In disbelief, she weighed the penny on a digital scale. It came in at three grams, one gram more than similar pennies from 1970. And it was slightly smaller than a normal penny, owing to the shrinking after the casting process.

She traced Mr. Daws’s phone number through the gallery and left him the message. When he called back, he knew it had to be his penny as soon as she described it to him.

Reed will keep the penny as a work of art. How many other hands did the gold coin pass through before she found it? We will probably never know. Link -Thanks, Bill!

(image credit: Lynn Rogan)

The four gold Iron Age neck ornaments, or torcs, date from between the 1st and 3rd Century BC and are said to be worth an estimated £1m… The find is the most important hoard of Iron Age gold in Scotland to date.

Neatorama has previously posted stories about a Viking hoard and an Anglo-Saxon hoard found in the British Isles.  One factor that favors the discovery and preservation of these archeological treasures is the Treasure Act of 1996, an Act of Parliament that requires treasure hunters to turn in their finds to local authorities, but then guarantees them monetary compensation based on a market value of the treasure.  In many countries without such laws, finds such as these would be sold on the black market or melted down for bullion, destroying the remarkable artistry of the pieces.  The Treasure Act does not apply in Scotland, where this was found, but indications are that this fellow will be richly compensated in order to encourage others to report their discoveries.

At the BBC link the other pieces can be seen in a brief video.

Henken’s story attracted the attention of another woman, Betty Atkison Ryan, who knew a practical joker (long deceased) named John Slaven, who often used the fake name, Chauncey Wolcott.

Atkinson Ryan told the newspaper that Slaven was her boss in the Journal-Register’s classified advertising department decades ago. She said Slaven often used a typewriter to compose some of his jokes and signed them “Chauncey Wolcott.”

Ms. Henken has admitted to being had, but still thinks there must be something buried there.  She luckily still has use of a donated backhoe; unfortunately the property owners have pulled the plug on her efforts.

Link Photo: Associated Press

Gold is a precious metal so you would, understandably, assume that it is used sparingly and wisely. However, that’s not always the case. Some people have more money than wit, as you can see from how one of the most expensive metals on earth is used to quite literally increase one’s self worth by ingesting a golden pill. Shown are statues of the ex-President of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, who loved gold almost as much as he loved seeing his own image. See more golden bling at Money Hacker.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Arby.

Times are tough, and money is spread pretty thin, so you probably want to sell some of your stuff. If you decide to sell your gold jewelry to Cash4Gold, who has been running a lot of late-night TV and radio ads, read this article by Rob Cockerham of Cockeyed first:

Cash4Gold is nice enough to admit when they were trying to rip you off.

Since I saw the first commercial, I had a feeling that Cash4Gold might be a rip-off. They advertise during late-night cable television programming and on sports radio. This time slot is pretty crowded with what I call “red-flag” advertising. Another hint is that their DBA sounds more like a text message than an actual business name.
You are encouraged to send your “scrap” gold in a plastic bag, and to trust they will handle it securely and send a reasonable, near market-rate payment for the precious metal therein. They’ll take whatever gold items you have, so maybe it would be too complicated to offer actual prices posted on their website.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by JKirchartz.

The gold pills shown to the right sound exactly like an old Dave Chapelle sketch, as they’re supposed to bling out your “leavings.” I have to agree with MSN on this one, I certainly do not want this as a gift, even if the person giving them spent oer $400 on my present.

Link