This little board came out of a barcode scanner. The gold colored metal was very soft to the scratch and I'm curious to know if anybody can determine whether it is gold or not.

I 'think' I remember reading that those are indeed gold coated, but very thin... If you have a hundred+ of them, it would be worth refining the gold off them. For just a couple pieces, it is not worth the hassle.

probably the easiest way to tell is to find a gold karat test kit... or if you happen to have HCl on hand I can tell you another way.

Thank you for your information.

They're usually gold plated copper.
Remove the lens to get to the cpu underneath