Wow. I make jewelry, among my many other pursuits, and I've avoided working with gold in part due to its softness, thus being something of a pain to work with without leaving obvious tool marks.

At 98% pure, this gold had to be extremely difficult to work, much less to care for, which makes it doubly amazing that it survived in such pristine condition for so long.

Of course, my other reason for not working with gold is that I simply prefer sterling silver, and always have. ;-)