Hi there sam007,
a couple of points from my experience....
First up, the $10,000 rule is fairly universal - as all countries need to have a baseline for you to have to declare things. Where you can fall foul of this is where you are carrying multiple forms of value that exceed this limit. Just be aware that the $10,000 is the total of all such convertible things - your gold plus any cash you carry, jewellery, etc. I think this is a concept many do not understand. If you have $9,000 in gold, but also happen to have a gold necklace worth $500, plus $600 in whatever currency, you are actually above the limit.

Second thing is that "gold" is not "gold" - depending on the purity it will have different values. Unless it is some sort of 999 pure bullion, the actual value has to be determined by the assay of it - if you intend to be near the limit, you should make some attempt to get some sort of documentation to establish its real worth. This will help you in an airport conversation scenario.

Third and lastly, if you are kosher, and are not trying to do an improper thing, it is far better to declare it all and talk to them, rather than being found out. When you declare something you start of on a good footing - and things will be reasonably worked through. If you do not declare things, you start off from the entirely different position, and this usually does not go well. Gold is perhaps one of the things most easily detectable by even rudimentary scanning, as it is simply a very dense item that can be picked up by even the most primitive of scanners.

So in summary, if you think you are even near the limit - declare it and talk to them. Far better this than being challenged and them taking from you everything.