I thought you folks would be some of the few that would actually appreciate this quote. Apparently the gifts of gold in ancient times were not always "good as gold.

Here's a quote from the book 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed:

But it seems that the gold wasn’t always gold, as the Babylonian kings in particular complained. In one letter sent by Kadashman-Enlil to Amenhotep III, he said, “You have sent me as my greeting-gift, the only thing in six years, 30 minas of gold that looked like silver.” His successor in Babylon, the Kassite king Burna-Buriash II, similarly wrote in one letter to Amenhotep III’s successor, Akhenaten: “Certainly my brother [the king of Egypt] did not check the earlier (shipment of) gold that my brother sent to me. When I put the 40 minas of gold that were brought to me into a kiln, not (even) 10 minas, I swear, appeared.” In another letter, he said: “The 20 minas of gold that were brought here were not all there. When they put it into the kiln, not 5 minas of gold appeared. The (part) that did appear, on cooling off looked like ashes. Was the gold ever identified (as gold)?”