heck no, we won't gold

Saw a sign in a shop window across from coffee, something along the lines "we buy old gold." I recognize this is a kind of hustling - not "scrap gold," but "old gold." "Oh spring clean the jewelry you don't wear and maybe get a bit of mad money out of it," as a guise for the blunt "if you are desperate or gullible, we would like to give you a percentage of the metal weight of your sentimental object, but not the full value as we intend to sell it to another buyer." Alternately, because this is not a town short on money: "Some of your jewelry is ugly - so ugly that no one would want it; so ugly that its current form debases the thing it's made of - and clearly you are not to be trusted with anything more sophisticated than a candy bar."

I have no idea whether this sign has compelled anyone to sell their gold, or whether it is likely to. It is an odd fit for the location.

But mostly it strikes me as ignorant, because no gold is any older than other gold. Gold is an element, and an extremely stable one. It's all existed for the same amount of time.

Unless of course they mean to clarify that they are not interested in rare lab-created radioisotopes of gold, some of which have half lives shorter than three days. Some of them are used in cancer treatments, and we are near a few research hospitals.

In that case, I think it's best not to be coy: "We buy Au-197."