I've noticed some accounts have gold borders around their summoner icons and others don't. I was wondering why this is? I have a gold trim around my icon too and I'm not level 30 yet so it has nothing to do with ranked games)

Please don't get the 'gold trim' thing confused with the loading screen. I've been searching through threads about this topic and found some people have asked the same question I just did only to find people answering about the loading screen.

Pic?

I'm next to positive that it means the player has reached a gold ELO in ranked matches. There is one for silver and platinum also.

http://imgur.com/p405gUV

That's the icon that I mean, I'm level 28 and have that gold border around my icon.

Depends which icon you select. If you chose a different one with a different border, it would be the same color as you see on anyone else with that icon.

In other words, an icon's border isn't some special addon - it's part of the icon itself.

I've noticed that too. Some accounts have random gold borders even when another icon that's exactly the same does not have a gold border.

Nice necromancy.

I've also noticed this and everyone that asks about it, like you've already said, gets the same response about the loading screen border. It has nothing to with ranked because I've only played a handful of ranked matches. There doesn't seem to be anything about it anywhere.