Opening a gold account: Gold accounts are offered by most banks in Switzerland. Here, gold can be bought or sold in much the same way foreign currencies are dealt. A gold account is backed either through non-fungible (allocated) gold storage or pooled (unallocated) storage. Owning a gold certificate: A gold investor may opt to hold on to a gold certificate rather than store the physical gold bullion. Nuggets that have very rich deep orange/yellow color are sure to have higher gold content than pale ones. Also, there is a system called "millesimal fineness" which is used to denote the purity of gold alloy (also of silver and platinum alloys) by parts per thousand of pure metal by mass in the alloy. Trading in ETFs means doing away with the inconveniences associated with the handling of physical silver bars. Entering in a Contract For Difference (CFD): Some of the noted financial services firms, especially those in the United Kingdom, provide Contract for Difference (CFD). In this silver investment vehicle, two parties (a "buyer" and a "seller") enter into a contract, in which the seller agrees to pay the buyer the difference between the current value of silver and its value at contract time. Following is the definition and a brief historical account of each. Gold Specie Standard: In this gold standard, the unit of currency is linked to the gold coins that are in circulation. More specifically, the monetary unit is associated with the unit of value of a specific gold coin in circulation along with that of any secondary coinage (coins made of metal that is valued less than gold). Safety Issues Concerning Precious Metals The metallic chemical elements collectively known as precious metals are called as such because of their extreme rarity and high economic value. Precious metals occur naturally or are by-products of the processing of other less rare metals. In order of increasing mass abundance (parts per billion), the precious metals are rhenium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, osmium, gold, platinum, palladium, and silver. Ruthenium dissolves only in the presence of oxygen. Rhodium dissolves only when it is in a fine, pulverized form. Iridium and silver do not dissolve under any condition. In another definition, noble metals may refer to electrically conductive elements. Here, the term "noble" serves as a modifying word, such that the electrical conductivity of materials is graded from noble to active.