Are you getting SO EXCITED for the Olympics? Hours upon hours of obscure sports to watch at all hours of the day, which you don’t even need a TV to see this year! We’ve even got some local kids to root for: Park Slope’s Race Imboden (a hell of an Olympic name), a 19-year-old fencing hopeful and DJ who, in true Brooklyn fashion, rides a vintage bike to concerts at Union Pool; and Fort Greene’s Lia Neal, a 17-year-old swimmer who qualified for the relay team. They’ll be going for the gold, but have you ever wondered what a gold medal is really worth?
Turns out, a gold medal is made of all of 1.34 percent gold, the rest is 93 percent silver and 6 percent copper, according to ABC Action News. So if you melted that down, you get about $650 worth of metal to sell to wherever it is you sell metal; a silver medal is worth about $335, the lowly bronze, which is made mostly of copper, is worth less than $5.
So if Imboden or Neal bring home the gold, here are some suggestions of what they could buy when they get back to Brooklyn, were they desperate enough to smelt it all down:
-One month’s rent on my extremely tiny bedroom
-Six months of Brooklyn Boulders membership
-970 cans of Simpler Times beer
-81 rides on the Cyclone
-3 super fancy pieces of the Coney Island boardwalk
-232 pounds of ground beef at Fairway
-One year of membership at the Greenpoint YMCA
-32.5 pies at the Blue Stove
-43 round trips to the beach on Rockabus
-26 hours of bowling at Brooklyn Bowl
-26 memberships to Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club ($25/membership) or one trip to the ER if you fell into the canal (without health insurance, of course)
-This ’12 Schwinn 411 IG5 from Ride Brooklyn
-50 Banh mi + medium bubble teas (with tip for the delivery guy) from Hanco
-32 pitchers at Greenwood Park ($18 per pitcher, but $2 tip. You’re paying with gold, don’t be cheap)
Thanks to Sarah Bibi, Kelly Murphy, Sue Smith, Andrew Linderman and Eric Silver for contributing!