A Gold Medal in 1988: I Sold It This Week

In 1988, I received a gold medal for teaching excellence from the The University of Western Ontario. I also received a certificate, signed with a rubber-stamp signature from the then provost.

Here are photos of the medal, taken on Wednesday, the day I sold it:

According to my scales at home, the medal weighed about 2 ounces. Ignoring transaction costs, if it had been pure gold (it wasn't, it was only 10K gold),

it might have been worth about $2200 Cdn.

But I live in a small town. Transaction costs mount as people travel from place-to-place to buy up old gold and as others bear the costs of re-smelting the gold products.

How much do you think I received for the medal?

Next week, I will post the answer, along with an answer to the question "Why now?"

Meanwhile, my advice to the university is: in the future, give cash and save the money that would have to be spent to strike these puppies.

Comments

[Jeff H]

1500$

[Ironman]

Going by the most likely rate for scrap gold on 22 October 2009, a 62.2 gram (2-oz) piece of 10K gold would pull in is approximately 881.50 USD, or 927.32 CAD, assuming the exchange rate yesterday was the same as for this morning. My guess is that you received a bit under that figure, given your location and those pesky transaction costs the buyer would incur.

Tools used for the math:

Scrap Gold Price Estimate: http://www.goldprice.org/scrap-gold-price-calculator.html (Using $1057.80 for the USD/oz price for pure gold)

Currency Exchange Rate: http://www.xe.com/ucc/

[Eliot Rosewater]

$ 600 bob,

I am gunna guess you did it because of something to do with your discontent with the school administration.

see:
http://www.eclectecon.net/2009/04/the-demise-of-the-uwo-economics-department.html

[blogs]

that is very nice medal,but there are various ways to express displeasure and one cannot suppress personal minds ,it is a source of vocalising discontentment,
regards
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