golden scales

Surviving written records and draconic oral history alike, dragons have always liked precious metals.
The standard currency of the Third Age is based on gold, silver, and copper. Platinum coins are pretty rare because platinum is too expensive for most Scarterrans to deal with. In the First Age, platinum, gold, and silver were the baseline of their currency. Copper was rarely used as a medium of exchange because dragons did not like to deal with such small transactions.
First Age dragons commonly kept hoards but money for day-to-day transactions needed to be on hand for exchanges. These dragons often wore their money on necklaces and bracelets (including tail bracelets). When making a purchase dragons would add or remove pieces of precious metal from they were wearing. It was common that the gold, silver, and platinum was shaped in the imitation of dragon scales.
A lot of dragons would flaunt their wealth by wearing more golden scales than they needed. Supposedly this is the origin of wearing jewelry in the Second and Third Ages.
A lot of collectors (especially modern dragons) place a lot of value on authentic gold and platinum scales from the First Age.  It is hard to find truly authentic scales.  A great many scales were melted down and recast as coins or bullion in the Second Age. Most golden scales seen in the Third Age are replicas or forgeries.