A Gold Bar Weighs about as Much as a Car

• Gold is dense, making it a good conductor of electricity.
• Gold is non-corrosive, making it a good conductor of electricity.
• Gold is malleable, making it easy to form into various shapes.

While gold is prized for its preciousness and investment value, it also possesses another characteristic worth its weight in gold: density.
Gold is denser than water, denser than most metals, and more dense than air. A gold bar, which weighs about 400 pounds, has a mass comparable to the weight of an average car.

How Much Gold Is in One Bar?

Gold bars are a popular way to invest in gold because they offer investors a reliable way of storing an amount of money in gold. Gold bars come in a wide range of sizes, from 1/10 ounce to 400 ounces. Most gold bars weigh about 400 pounds (182 kg).

Gold's Use As Currency

Gold is too soft to be used for coinage, so it has to be made into bars or ingots. These weigh 400 ounces, about 1.5 tons. If you cut a 400-ounce bar into 1-kilogram bars, you would have 400 x 0.454 = 176 kilogram bars, which is about 180 pounds.
Gold bars are not common, but larger ones are occasionally produced. The largest gold bar ever minted was 100 kilograms, about 220 pounds. It was minted on June 21, 2013, by the South African Mint and is displayed at the Reserve Bank of South Africa.

Gold's Role In Religion

The Middle East is the birthplace of civilization as well as gold. Gold's physical properties make it ideal for making jewelry, coins, and other objects, and it is also likely to have held religious significance from very early on. The ancient Egyptians believed that gold was magic, and that gold was proof against evil.
The Hebrews believed that gold was divine and that idols are made from gold. During the Middle Ages, Christians believed that gold was sacred and that gold altars were part of the ritual of mass.

Gold's Role In Art And Jewelry

The shiny metal has been used for decoration and ornamentation for thousands of years, as gold is a naturally beautiful color. It is heavy, malleable, and resistant to corrosion and tarnishing. It is resistant to mechanical damage and wears well over time. It is the most malleable of all metals, which means that it can be worked into nearly any shape.
Gold's light weight and malleability make it an ideal material for making jewelry. Fashion jewelry is usually made of gold, silver, or base metal, and is sold at relatively low prices.

Gold's Role In Medicine

Gold in its pure form is a nearly inert metal, reflecting its ancient use as money. However, it is now used extensively in medicine. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of gold compounds as antimicrobial agents in 1953. Since then, gold has been used to fight inflammation and infection.

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The Bottom Line

Gold is valued not only for its practical uses in everyday life, but also for its capacity as a storehouse of value. When many people think of gold, they think of jewelry. However, gold is also used in the electronics and telecommunications sectors.