Originally Posted by TierFlyer
I put my watch, cell phone, wallett, all that jazz in my laptop bag. Even though it won't set off the alarm. Gold, titanium, and leather isn't magnetically resonant so won't do doodly.
Handheld metal detectors used by hobbiests are able to alarm on gold; any metal will affect the phase of the magnetic field to some degree. I don't know that the airport WTMDs alarm on gold, but my class ring (10KT gold, so plenty of other metal in it) has alarmed WTMDs before.