# Gold plated stamps, any ideas how to process?



## NobleMetalWorks (Jun 19, 2012)

Alright, this is what I have...

I found a guy on craigslist who was selling a piece of equipment I have been looking for. In the process of talking with him I found out he was moving to Florida, and had several other things he was selling. Soon as he showed me gold, I explained to him what it is I do and then listened to his story for a good hour.

His mother had been collecting gold plated items for years and years, during the period of time it was illegal to hoard gold. What she did was collect items that were legal, like for example stamps. She passed away in the early 80s, and he's held onto this material ever since. He doesn't want to take it cross country with him, and some of it's already water damaged, like the stamps.

So thumbing through these stamp books, they are almost 100% gold plated stamps, many hundreds at times of the same exact stamp. I imagine in good condition they would have been worth far more to a collector, than the gold that could be recovered from them, but they are all damaged pretty bad. If not for the gold foil, I probably wouldn't know what most of them were. There are some from South American Banana producing countries, some from Pacific Island countries, and even some African. Along with American, European and even Asian. After counting 100 pages with an average of 10 stamps per page, I gave up even trying to figure out how many stamps in total there are. I can say this however, whatever I am able to get from these is going to be a lot more than what he would accept for them. He was just going to throw them out when he moved because he figured damaged, they were not worth much. I even offered to toll refine them, but he said he would be gone long before then, and could use the money now. If these yield anything decent, I'm going to feel bad about the price I gave him for them.

I was reading the post on the baseball cards but even still, I'm not sure what the best way to process this type of material would be. Any suggestions?

I also got a lot of gold plated bathroom fixtures that came out of a hotel back in the 70s, any suggestions on what might be the best method for recovering the gold plating? I don't currently have a sulfuric cell that can handle them, too much metal.

Scott


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## Geo (Jun 19, 2012)

hcl/Cl is what i used.then filter the paper out and rinse it well.


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## NobleMetalWorks (Jun 19, 2012)

Geo said:


> hcl/Cl is what i used.then filter the paper out and rinse it well.



Thanks Geo, I suspected that would be the best method, and I'll get a chance to use your fiberglass core idea as well as well. :mrgreen: 

Scott


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