Hey, @GalacticGal, I'm revisiting this thread because now that I have a mod which reminds me when the Starlight Accolades are happening my Musician sim has been making it to the ceremony every week. She's won several accolades for best song at this point and I can confirm that when your sim is on stage accepting the award it's always gold, regardless of what color the actual reward you get in household inventory is.
Mainly I posted here to let you know that I also noted that the different colors are all swatches on the same item. You don't need to delete and replace them to change them to gold, just go into build/buy and select the "Design Tool" and click them to pick the gold swatch.
