Assembly Line

How Olympic-style medals are made

Vancouver's gold medals spent about 100 minutes in a plating bath to gain a gold skin 20 micrometers thick.

stations
8
things upstream
22
raw sources
12
steps from the ground
4

The short version

Olympic medals are struck much the way coins are. A mint cuts and hardens steel dies, prepares blanks from rolled metal, and a hydraulic press squeezes each blank between the dies, sometimes several times with annealing in between. Gold medals are mostly silver, electroplated with gold. Silver medals stay silver, and bronze is a copper alloy. A ribbon fitting and name engraving come near the end.

  1. Cut the steel dies

    Each design becomes a 3D model, then tools cut it into steel, which is heat treated and hardened. For Vancouver 2010 the Royal Canadian Mint milled 12 undulated dies by CNC.

  2. Cast and roll the metal

    Cast bar is rolled to the required thickness. Gold and silver medals are mainly sterling silver, while bronze ones are a mix of copper, zinc and tin.

    Goes in
    SilverCopperZincTin

  3. Prepare the blanks

    Blanks are cut from the rolled metal to precise width and thickness. At the Austrian Mint they are also rimmed, annealed to relax the hardened grain, and then ball polished, washed or brushed.

  4. Strike between the dies

    A press drives the dies into the blank, and the metal takes the design. The Austrian Mint uses up to 12,000 kN per strike, far more than for coins. Vancouver's blanks were triple struck three separate times, polished and annealed between groups.

    up to 12,000 kN per strike

  5. Fix the ribbon fitting

    Some medals get ribbon eyes soldered on after finishing by hand. Vancouver's mint pressed a hanger into the body and tested it to withstand 200 lb of pressure.

  6. Clean for plating

    Gold-medal bodies are degreased, cleaned again electrically, and passed through an acid dip that removes any tarnish.

  7. Plate the gold

    A thin first gold layer gives good adhesion and traps stray contamination. A richer bath then builds the deposit to its final thickness, with each medal hung on a rack. The IOC asks for at least 6 grams of gold.

    at least 6 grams of gold

    Goes in
    Gold

  8. Seal and test

    A clear protective coat guards the surface against tarnish. Vancouver's were cold-tested to -20 °C, and winners' names and results are laser engraved. The ribbon is threaded through last.

End of the lineOlympic-style medal

Worth repeating

  • The International Olympic Committee requires a gold medal to be at least 92.5% silver plated with 6 grams of gold.
  • Medals must be at least 60 mm in diameter and 3 mm thick.
  • Vancouver 2010 produced 1,014 unique medal designs by cropping parts of two large artworks.

Back to the ground

Follow every input upstream and olympic-style medal starts as these 12 raw sources.

Silver oreLead oreZinc oreCopper oreWaterAirTin oreGold oreSulfurLimestoneCoalRock salt

Everything it is made of See it on the map

Open the whole family tree

Keep walking

Leather belt 10 stations · 28 raw sources Tin 5 stations · 2 raw sources Smartwatch 9 stations · 31 raw sources Car 8 stations · 31 raw sources Lumber 6 stations · 1 raw source Hockey puck 8 stations · 5 raw sources

Surprise meConnect this to something else

Sources

Cite this page: "How Olympic-style medals are made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/medal

Spot a mistake on this page?