I'm assuming the silver is the machined pin with some colored bands and the yellow is gold plated where the female version has a split. I use the machined ones when I can but have considered them interchangeable. But last night I had an avionics guy wiring the ADSB on my Navion find a broken wire to my SL-70 transponder. He had to re-pin it and the old one was the gold type. He tried to replace it with a machined pin which UPS typically uses but it didn't work. Fortunately I had some of the gold types and they did work. It was a typical 37 pin connector. Maybe the connector was just worn, maybe tolerances. Up until last night I would have said there was no fit/function difference.
 
Gold has higher corrosion resistance and lower conncetion reliability than nickel, which is usually used for power connections. They can be mixed otherwise.
 
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