Second-placing Olympians, if you're feeling sad and blue and singing along to The Smiths' "I Know It's Over" on repeat in dank East London karaoke bar, this one's for you: Both the gold and silver medals awarded at this summer's Olympics are made up of 92.5 percent silver — the remaining 7.5 percent is either all copper (for the silver medals) or a mix of copper and, yes, actual gold (for the gold ones, duh). Neither contain any chocolate, which is disappointing, because they look like they should. Olympic medals have actually been cast this way for a century now, with the last solid gold ones awarded at the Stockholm Games back in 1912.
There's still "a minimum of 6 grams of gold" in each first-place medal though. And hey, that means if you're not bothered about keeping the big ol' necklaces, you can pawn them for a good price somewhere wonderful like this.