I don't know if any of this is the case, just taking a stab in the dark. Whether it is the source for some vials of gold, or just an example of the effect of gold being in vials of clear liquid, maybe this is some interest for this discussion.
Reading this thread I had thought of a liquor that I have seen called Goldschlager. It is a cinnamon schnapps that has gold flakes in the bottom of the bottle. I did a search on the net for it and found one amusing site where some people had a party to try and find out how much gold was in the bottle. Of course, to get the gold out, they would have to drain the bottle and thus have ample opportunity to drink the schnapps. While suspended in the bottle of clear alcohol, it looks like a fair amount of gold. However, it seems, after filtering out the gold, through a coffee filter, the amount of gold appeared to be very little. The girl who weighed the gold said that it was too little to register on her kitchen scale. She guessed it to be less than 1/10th of a GRAM or less than $2 in value. The flakes were, obviously, very thin. Advertisements or reviews of Goldschlager claims it to be 24k gold leaf flakes. In the end, it was mentioned that all the gold was able to be smeared on the end of one of the girls fingers. Far less than what it seemed when floating in a bottle of clear liquid.
So, I just had the thought of whether some of these vials might be gold from Goldschlager or, perhaps, scraps from gold leaf projects that are shredded up into tiny flakes. They may actually be 24k gold flakes but might be very insignificant in quantity and value. Then suspended or packed in some clear liquid to make it appear more than it is. Open a vial and see if it smells like Cinnamon. Think about it. A vial of clear liquid might have a certain magnification effect. Thus, small, insignificant, flakes could appear greater than they really are.
Looking, right now, on eBay, I see 3 listings for "Gold Flakes" Vial. All are not responding. Then there is a miners bottle with a fancy top and some gold flakes in it. To me, it looks like a souvenier bottle from UTAH, where there are similar flakes, maybe the same as the Goldschlager, that are suspended in a clear liquid. They look quite large in the bulb shaped bottle. However, I wonder, when drained if they might not be equally insignificant.
The bottle in the UTAH bottle mentioned above, lookes kind fo cool and might be worth $5 or $10 as a souvenir item. However, I wouldn't expect it to be much of a gold purchase.
Finally, I wonder, if these vials do have such a small amount of gold, say only a fraction of what is in a $23 bottle of Goldschlager (750ml), would that small amount of gold register on a metal detector. Say a 1/10th GRAM amount from the bottle, divided in 2 or 4 vials, you could be talking as little as 1/20th or 1/40th of a gram or probably less.
It will not register on you metal Detector 
. That stuff is so thin you can almost see through it. Try buying a small nugget, 10 grains to 1 gram. These will show up on your detector. Good Luck AZBirddog
