How Much is an Olympic Medal Actually Worth?

What are Olympic medals worth? It's a good question, and we have an answer that may surprise you. Olympic medals are not actually entirely made up of their material name- they are mostly made up of sterling silver (about 92%). The last time the Olympic medals were made entirely of either gold, silver or bronze was in the 1912 Stockholm games. If you're curious, a gold medal from those games would fetch about $1,208 today.

Today's gold medal is worth about $583 and gilded with only about 6 grams of 24k gold. As a matter of fact, the amount of gold in an Olympic gold medal is worth less than the silver portion of the medal! The remainder is simply copper (almost 8%).

Note: The 2012 London Olympic gold medals rang in more than $620 each. However, the drop in worth of Sochi's medals is due to the change in the market prices of gold and silver since 2012, not the amount of precious metal in the medallion.

As you may have guessed, the silver Olympic medal is made out of, well, silver. It's worth is about $338 this year and still contains a little bit of copper as well. But, the big story is the bronze medal which really isn't bronze at all. Rather, it's a mix of copper, zinc and tin which brings its worth to a whopping $3.25, or about three McDoubles.

If you feel let down by the worth of the medals we award the world's best athletes, just think of this: If the Olympic medals were 100% pure, a gold would be worth about $21,500. We just thought you should know.