GoldPaq

The gilded age is here. Gold, the metal of kings, is now used for virtually everyone. No surprise then that gold’s value is doing better than ever, and those who have it want to flaunt it. So join us now for some of the most ?out there? uses for gold.

Gold Grills

It?s common in some cultures to have a gold rim implanted along the edge of the front teeth in order to signify success. This isn?t that. This is a mouth of gold. Imagine, literally, a gold sheath for your teeth. Now you?ve got a grill. They?re primarily popular in the hip-hop community and amongst those trying to emulate that group. Alright, I have to admit I?m on the fence here. You?re a rapper. You make your living with your mouth. It?s an understandable concept to want to adorn the source of your income with gold. There is a time and place when grills are what you want to be wearing. On the other hand, are exorbitant displays of wealth the example you want to put forward to those who look up to you? Rappers often discuss their desire to inspire their fans to get out of the ghetto. Is encouraging them to buy ostentatious gold jewelry the way to do that? Also, there?s a difference between looking rich and looking classy. Some acknowledge this and embrace it in either direction. Others don?t.

Gold Facial

Empresses of China used gold rollers on their face. Cleopatra slept in a gold mask. Therefore, gold must be great for the skin. That?s what one company thinks at least, as gold leaf facials are all the rage now at a spa in Charleston, South Carolina. To start, one?s face is completely covered with gold leaf foil. Then the foil-covered skin is massaged. The entire process takes an hour and twenty minutes. The concept is that the skin, in an attempt to reject the gold as a foreign object, grows new skin cells at an accelerated rate, thereby firming up the face. The cost for this procedure? Over $350. Gilded age indeed.

Gold Cars

There have been plenty of novelty cars out there that were covered in gold plating by their owners. So what? What about dealer car? One available as an option by the factory itself. Has such a car ever existed? Indeed it has. And what was it? A Lamborghini? A Cadillac? Not even close. The car… was a Delorean. In 1981, American Express gold card members were given the option of ordering 1 of 100 24 carat gold plated Deloreans built at the factory specifically for American Express?s customers. Asking price? $85,000. Out of these 100, however, only two were ordered and made. The first was purchased by Roger Mize, the president of Snyder National Bank in Snyder, Texas. Roger bought the car and displayed it in the lobby of his bank for over two decades. It has never been driven. The second is located in an Automobile museum in Reno, Nevada. In 1983, a third and final gold Delorean was built, constructed from the spare parts set aside for the previous two. The third car is currently available for sale for $250,000.

Gold Guns

Don?t get me wrong, I love guns, but guns made of gold are just something I don?t understand. There are a couple of things a gun?s appearance should accomplish. Namely, either stand out or blend in. If I?m engaged in a bit of urban warfare, the last thing I want is for some punk bad-guy to notice my Blingy McBling fire arm from a thousand yards away and let me have it between the eyes. If I were a bodyguard however, or heck, ANY kind of guard, then I would want my gun to stand-out, or more specifically, intimidate. I?m sorry, but gold guns just aren?t intimidating. If I saw a guard wielding a gun made of gold I?d probably mistake him for a pimp. It?s so easy to look like a dope when you?re wielding a golden gun that the only person I can think of who can pull it off is a James Bond villain. I can see a gun made of gold being given out as an award, but you know what? If you received a golden M16 for shooting fifty bad guys, I?d rather see the actual gun you did it with. That?d be impressive.

Gold Clothing

What happens when you have a precious metal capable of being spun down to a thread roughly the same diameter as a human hair? You end up with gold cloth. And what better item to make with that cloth than a woman?s swimsuit and a dress? Tanaka Kikinzoku Jewelry, the largest gold bullion house in Japan supplied the gold for the two articles of clothing which were designed by Ginzatanaka. The swimsuit alone weighs over a pound. While the swimsuit will not be for sale, however, the dress will. The asking price? 30 million yen. If the swimsuit were to go on sale it would only cost 10 million yen. It will be interesting to see how the price rises as the price of gold continues to rise.

Gold Kryptonite

Sure, it?s fiction. But hey, it?s Kryptonite. Even our grandmothers know what Kryptonite is. Besides the green Kryptonite we?re all familiar with, there are also blue, red, black and a multitude of other types of Kryptonite that effect Superman in different ways. So what does gold Kryptonite due? Simple. It saps Superman of his powers, permanently. Were Superman to ever be exposed to gold Kryptonite, he would no longer be Superman. Period.

Gold Food

Aside from being beautiful and the basis behind many early currencies, gold is also edible. Yes, you read that right. You can eat it. Gold is entirely inert. This is why dentists have long used gold fillings and gold teeth to fix cavities. Most high end culinary stores likely carry gold leaf and flakes for garnishing food. The gold doesn?t serve any purpose beyond appearance. Or at least that?s what most people believe. In the mid-1970?s, an Arizona Farmer named David Hudson was attempting to extract the last bits of gold from an old mine when he came upon a white powder. After countless tests, Hudson decided that the substance must be ?monoatomic? gold. That is to say, gold ground down to such a fine powder that you?re looking at its individual atoms. Hudson claimed the white powder gold was a high temperature super-conductor and levitated when heated. Hudson finally decided that he had discovered a lost ancient alchemic substance that when ingested could provide all sorts of health benefits, one of which being possible immortality.

Gold Drinks

If you can eat gold then you can sure as heck drink it. Well, not molten gold, but flakes of gold suspended in fluid, is just fine. The most well known drink with gold flakes is arguably Goldschlager, a Swiss cinnamon schnapps made in Italy. Don?t get to excited though; there?s less than a tenth of a gram of gold in each bottle. Gold Strike is a similar drink, a cinnamon schnapps made by Bols. The grand-daddy of them all, however, is Goldwasser. It is a root and herbal liqueur that has been made since at least 1598, making it just over 400 years old. It is this drink which started the whole ?gold flakes? gimmick. Four centuries ago, however, it wasn?t so gimmicky. Back then, the gold was believed to have medicinal qualities. Today, it?s a common rumor amongst all of these drinks that the gold flakes are added to create small cuts in the mouth, throat, and stomach, thus allowing the drinker to become drunk faster. This is, of course, complete rubbish as gold is one of the softest metals out there and flakes of it are hardly capable of cutting someone. Besides these alcoholic beverages, there is also Au Le Cadeau, a bottled drinking water that contains colloidal gold.

Inhaling Gold

No, there isn’t an outlandish product where you snort gold. There are, however, microscopic organisms known as extremophiles that utilize dissolved metals like uranium, iron, and gold the same way we use oxygen. The extremophile absorbs the dissolved metal and then it does something truly amazing; it excretes the metal as a solid. It is likely that the large amounts of gold found during the California gold rush was actually brought about by these organisms.

For a metal that was once primarily only used for jewelry and currency, gold has certainly come a long way. From cars, to food, to weapons, the uses mankind has come up with for the shiny yellow metal is definitely mind boggling. But as time has proven again and again, history moves in cycles. With that in mind, one can only wonder if a time will come again, when the only money we have is the gold we hold in our possession.

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