Last week I looked at a brass material for a project I'm working on, and through the references I got, I could not tell the difference between brass and gold, except by context! I must not know them very well, but I was really surprised. I even ask some other people if they could and still they were as perplexed as I was.

What I did find out is that brass is sometimes a more pale yellow than gold is. Gold can often be an almost orange-y color. Not completely, but you get the point...