GOLD

A visitor touches the world's largest solid gold brick weighing 220kg (worth over US $7.8 million at
today's price), at the Jinguashi Gold Museum in Ruifang, Taipei county, on December 2, 2009.
Hava Katz, the head of the national treasures of Israel's Antiquities Authority, holds up a 1,000-year-old gold coin
minted in Egypt and dated 1,095 AD, supposedly brought to Jerusalem by Muslim pilgrims, during an exhibition
at the Davidson Archaeological centre in Jerusalem's Old city on November 11, 2009.
A statue of a bird of prey made of gold is pictured at a gold and silver exhibition at the
Ginza Tanaka store in Tokyo October 23, 2009.
An artisan makes gold ornaments at a jewelery factory in the eastern Indian city of
Kolkata November 13, 2009
A man holds a spoon full of gold leaf, ready to eat it with his sushi at the "Seven Sushi Samurai"
Sushi of the Year awards 2009 at the Olympia exhibition center in west London, on November 14, 2009.
The gold leaf was an ingredient in last year's winner Mitsunori Kusakabe's entry.
Children from the Turkana area of Kanukurdio pan for flakes of gold which helps sustain
their families on November 9, 2009 near Lodwar, Kenya.
A pure gold statue of Buddha is displayed at the Ginza Tanaka store in Tokyo
November 26, 2009.
Trays with gold ingots are placed in a room for final weighing and packaging at the Krastsvetmet
plant in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk November 16, 2009.
Pedro Linares uses a calculator to determine how much the company he works for, Fast
Cash Gold Parties, will pay for the gold jewelry that he is weighing on October 30, 2009
in Hialeah, Florida. As the price of gold remains high, the company is busy setting up
these modern day Tupperware parties to buy people's unwanted gold in their homes.
Gold figurines on display in a shop window in Hong Kong on November 17, 2009.
Colombian gold prospectors mine for the precious metal on the river Dagau, Zaragoza province,
Cauca, Colombia on November 17, 2009. About 8,000 gold prospectors work illegally on the
Dagua river to support their families
A gold trader weighs gold in Cauca, Colombia on November 17, 2009
Metal detector enthusiast David Booth poses with his hoard of Iron Age Gold on November 4, 2009
in Edinburgh, Scotland. Booth discovered the Iron Age Gold buried on private land in Stirlingshire -
the items dating from between 300-100 BC. The hoard is currently under protection
of the Treasure Trove Unit, under Scottish law, the Crown can claim any archaeological objects
found in Scotland.
Gold-toothed football player Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans sits on the bench during their
game against the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park on November 8, 2009 in San Francisco.
A gold miner pushes a wheelbarrow to carry rocks which will be processed for gold in an artisanal
mine in Abangares, north of San Jose, Costa Rica on December 9, 2009. Costa Rica is pushing to
legalize a 600 informal miners of small-scale miners who scrape out tiny amounts of gold from
abandoned mine shafts using dangerous and polluting techniques.
People work in an illegal gold mine in a national park forest near Novo Progresso in
Brazil's northern state of Paral on September 15, 2009.
A Christie's employee looks at a creation "Relief Eponge" by Yves Klein on display at the auction
house in London, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010. The gold sponge relief creation is to be auctioned at
the "Post-war and Contemporary" sale on Feb. 11 with an estimated price of 5.7 to 8 million euros
(US $8.2 to 11.4 million).
A model displays pure gold Disney character dolls showing Snow White and the seven dwarfs, priced
at 30 million yen ($300,000 USD) and produced by Tanaka Kikinzoku Jewelry in Tokyo on November 4, 2009
for the promotion of Blu-ray disks of Disney movies.
A Caterpillar Inc. mining truck moves along a road at the AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. Cripple Creek & Victor
gold mine in Victor/Cripple Creek, Colorado, on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Africa's
largest gold producer, purchased Golden Cycle Gold Corp. in January 2008 to gain full control of this
mining site, its only active operation in the U.S.
Sharon Brumley pours fusion samples into cone molds to determine the total gold content in a sample
at the AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. Cripple Creek & Victor gold mine in Colorado on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009.
A woman wades deep under a river bank to collect mud to pan for gold in Pidie district in Indonesia's
Aceh province November 2, 2009. Residents in the area engaged in traditional gold mining can get
about 1.5-2 grams of gold and earn 275,000 rupiah ($28) per day
Gold busts of (l-r) Chinese leaders President Hu Jintao, former president Jiang Zemin,
late patriarch Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong, are displayed at a gold exhibition in
Beijing, China on November 8, 2009.
An overall view of the open pit gold-copper Cadia mine in Orange district in Australia
on January 8, 2010.
A Japanese girl admires a gold model named "Wishing to shooting stars" at a gold and silver craft
exhibition in Tokyo on October 23, 2009. The 30cm-tall, 15kg pure gold artifact is worth
130 million yen (US $1.3 million).
THE END