•Bare nanostructured gold exhibits intrinsic ferro- and superparamagnetic behaviour.•Magnetic properties are strongly affected by the surface and size effects.•Interaction between clusters showing an core-shell structure causes magnetization. Recent research has shown unconventional magnetic properties in nanosized gold systems. These effects have mostly been detected in functionalized gold nanoparticles as well as in gold nanocrystalline films. We demonstrate ferro- and superparamagnetic behaviour in assemblies of bare gold nanoclusters. This is demonstrated by the characteristic ferromagnetic hysteresis with the temperature dependent saturation magnetization, remanence and coercivity in aggregates of small clusters. The detected magnetization is caused by the interaction between the separate clusters exhibiting an core-shell structure, and dependent on the total amount of gold confined in the samples. The behaviour is analogous to that of transition metal clusters.