The surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of C-60 adsorbed on aqueous gold colloid was reported for the first time. We used the pyridine molecule as a intermediate to connect and fix the C-60 molecule to the surface of the golden crystal nanoparticle. The enhancement factor is 10(4). Not only was the number of vibrational modes greatly increased, but also were the significant Raman bands splitted as well as frequencies up and down shifted, respectively, arising from symmetry lowering and selection rule relaxing of C-60 induced by the gold surface. The splittings of the Raman modes is consistent with the calculation based on group theory. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.