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.