What does the color mean?

That is one of the most asked question I get in Guild Wars
What does the color mean?

From Wiki
Item rarity link

Most items available in Guild Wars use colors to indicate the quality or rarity of the item. The actual meaning depends on the item (details provided below). As a general guide, white indicates that the item is very common and without modifiers, blue indicates that it has some minor modifiers, purple that it is an uncommon item which may have adequate modifiers, gold that the item’s modifiers are of high quality and/or rare, and green is used to identify a unique item.

Note, for example, that an item in gold is not necessarily superior to an item in purple. The actual value depends on specific attributes of the item and the current in-game trading environment.

The key piece of info is:
that an item in gold is not necessarily superior to an item in purple.
The actual value depends on specific attributes of the item and the current in-game trading environment.
So a gold item is not better or more valuable then a purple item.
It just depends on what the mods are!