The medals athletes win in the course of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan could possibly be much more beneficial than in previous video games due to hovering gold and silver prices.
Olympic gold medals are not fabricated from strong gold. The final time a pure gold medal was awarded was on the 1912 Summer season Olympic Video games in Stockholm, Sweden, Bobby Eaton, an Olympics memorabilia skilled at Boston-based RR Public sale, informed CBS Information. Now, the Worldwide Olympic Committee solely requires that gold medals include no less than 92.5% silver, in keeping with IOC pointers.
Olympic gold medals right now are composed of 500 grams of silver plated with six grams of pure gold. Silver medals include 500 grams of silver and no gold plating. Bronze medals are strong bronze.
At present valuable metallic costs and based mostly solely on the mineral contents, the so-called “soften worth” of an Olympic gold medal is round $2,500.
On Monday, the price of gold rose to $5,090 per ounce. Six grams is the same as 0.2 ounces, giving the gold contained within the Winter Olympic medals a worth of $1,018. At $83 an oz., the silver contained in a gold medal is value about $1,463. That will make a gold medal value $2,481, simply based mostly on the worth of its parts.
Gold costs soared to report highs final month, surpassing $5,000 for the primary time, as buyers flocked to the dear metallic to hedge towards dangers associated to geopolitical uncertainty and rising international debt.
Athletes who bought medals
In fact, Olympic medals sometimes have a far higher monetary worth due to their historic significance and collectability. If an athlete have been to attempt to promote their medal quickly after the video games, they might fetch between $50,000 and $80,000, Eaton informed CBS Information.
“There’s a discrepancy between the soften worth and precise collectible worth,” he mentioned.
Whereas most Olympic athletes maintain on to their hard-earned medals, some prize winners resell them for costs that may replicate their status and significance. In 2013, one in all 4 gold medals received by U.S. monitor and discipline athlete Jesse Owens on the 1936 Olympic Video games in Berlin was auctioned for $1.47 million — a report for an Olympic medal, in keeping with SCP Auctions, which handled the sale.
Greg Louganis, the famed American diver who received a complete of 5 gold medals and one silver medal on the 1976, 1984 and 1988 Olympics, additionally parted methods with three of his 5 medals. In 2025, his Seoul 1988 Summer season Olympics gold medal for 10-meter platform diving bought for over $200,000, in keeping with RR Public sale, which dealt with the sale.
Louganis’s Los Angeles 1984 Summer season Olympics gold medal for 3-meter springboard diving bought for slightly below $200,000, whereas his Montreal 1976 Summer season Olympics silver medal for the 10-meter platform occasion bought for greater than $30,000. The medal gross sales allowed Louganis to maneuver to Panama, Eaton, who dealt with the sale, informed CBS Information.
“He mentioned the cash he received from promoting his medals let him begin his life again up once more so he may do what he wished to do,” Eaton mentioned.
Extra lately, swimming champ Ryan Lochte in 2022 auctioned six of his medals — three silver, three bronze — to lift cash for a kids’s charity. Over 4 Olympics, he received a complete of 12 medals, together with six gold.
“I am not one to be all sentimental about medals,” Lochte told The Related Press on the time. “My medals are simply sitting in my closet amassing mud. The reminiscences that I’ve is what means probably the most.”
Deal with with care
This 12 months’s medals are drawing consideration for one more purpose that would presumably take among the shine off. The Olympics Organizing Committee mentioned it’s investigating an “situation affecting a small quantity” of the prizes after some athletes complained that their medals had broken.
“Do not bounce in them,” Breezy Johnson, who won the gold medal in downhill snowboarding for Staff USA on Sunday, informed reporters after her race.
“I used to be leaping in pleasure and it broke. I am positive any individual will repair it — it is not like loopy damaged — but it surely’s slightly damaged,” she mentioned.
