# solid 10k gold pins



## dripsta23 (Apr 4, 2012)

hey guys I removed some pins off an old 1970 fiber optics card and they look to be solid 10k gold. I tested them with 10k nitric acid & with 18k acid it dissolved the pin leaving flakes of gold. Is this A fist?
how can I melt them or refine this to pure gold?


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## edd89 (Apr 4, 2012)

dripsta23 said:


> hey guys I removed some pins off an old 1970 fiber optics card and they look to be solid 10k gold. I tested them with 10k nitric acid & with 18k acid it dissolved the pin leaving flakes of gold. Is this A fist?
> how can I melt them or refine this to pure gold?


nice find those are worth stacks of money


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## Geo (Apr 4, 2012)

ive never seen solid gold pins. what you are seeing is gold plating.take a file and cut a deep groove and drop some nitric on the cut.if it reacts with a green color, then its copper based.


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## NobleMetalWorks (Apr 4, 2012)

I think you meant they are 14k gold plate. And Fiber Optics, so far as I know, where not even employed in electronics, on a consumer scale until the early 1990s when the internet became a big deal. Fiber optic cable wasn't even laid in the ground over long distances until late 1990s. The first commercially viable fiber optics cable wasn't even produced until around 1983. And even then was not made with material viable enough for any serious commercial applications, let alone electronics. Also, I believe a fiber optic connection looks vastly different than what you are showing in the picture. It's okay, electronics and the dates of electronics can be extremely confusing and misleading at times. And I might be totally wrong, you could have some exotic piece of hospital equipment that was used in the 70s.

Lucky for you the pins are far more easier to process, with the correct equipment, experience and knowledge, than trying to figure out what it is and where it came from. What type of equipment did it come off of matter of fact, you said 1970s, so I am assuming the electronics was from that period. But what did it come off of?

So, first thing I would do if I were you is read Hoke. You might want to read Ammen and Wise also, but at least Hoke.

You can do a quick search and find a lot more information, people are going to keep repeating that. I have asked questions without searching first also, I think most people are guilty of doing that at least a few times, so don't feel bad about asking, but ask the search box first, then if you don't have the answer, ask. A quick search resulted in pages of topics and this message "Search found 143 matches: +how +to +process +gold +pin +connectors " So you can see there is a wealth of information just on this site. But still, read at least Hoke. You can search, and find, a PDF copy of Hoke's book right here on the forum, it won't cost you a dime.

You are going to want to purchase the right equipment and consumables, but read Hoke first.

You are going to want a well vented work area, the acids and processes used to consume and then precipitate gold, and the combinations of, release Toxic deadly gas that can seriously hamper your ability to function as a human being. It will however turn you into great food for plants, so long as the NOx is washed out of your lungs first. I am serious about this, you are dealing with deadly, caustic and noxious fumes, gases and vapors.

Be safe, and good luck!


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## dripsta23 (Apr 4, 2012)

Geo said:


> ive never seen solid gold pins. what you are seeing is gold plating.take a file and cut a deep groove and drop some nitric on the cut.if it reacts with a green color, then its copper based.


you where right the digged deep to its core & 14k acid showed up green. Still though this is very thick plating. how can I extract the gold?


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## dripsta23 (Apr 4, 2012)

SBrown said:


> I think you meant they are 14k gold plate. And Fiber Optics, so far as I know, where not even employed in electronics, on a consumer scale until the early 1990s when the internet became a big deal. Fiber optic cable wasn't even laid in the ground over long distances until late 1990s. The first commercially viable fiber optics cable wasn't even produced until around 1983. And even then was not made with material viable enough for any serious commercial applications, let alone electronics. Also, I believe a fiber optic connection looks vastly different than what you are showing in the picture. It's okay, electronics and the dates of electronics can be extremely confusing and misleading at times. And I might be totally wrong, you could have some exotic piece of hospital equipment that was used in the 70s.
> 
> Lucky for you the pins are far more easier to process, with the correct equipment, experience and knowledge, than trying to figure out what it is and where it came from. What type of equipment did it come off of matter of fact, you said 1970s, so I am assuming the electronics was from that period. But what did it come off of?
> 
> ...


This stuff is from the 1970's. I picked it up from some dead guy's storage unit. he worked for goverment.
Thanks for the info I think I will just sell on ebay.


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## glondor (Apr 4, 2012)

Where you located and how many pounds of the pins do you have?


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 4, 2012)

Some facts about gold plated electronic materials.

Testing plated gold with a touchstone, XRF, or one of those testing pens gives meaningless answers other than maybe saying whether, or not, gold is present - they say absolutely nothing reliable about its value. Note: it is possible to measure plating thickness with specially programmed XRF equipment.

Pins for that application are never solid gold. I have seen solid gold pins maybe twice in my life. They were extremely tiny and were used for some very obscure application. Certainly not for common connectors, like these.

With one exception (a Au/Pd alloy used on some reed switches), I have never seen gold plating on electronics that was not at least 99% pure. They never use 10K, 14K, 18K, or any other karat plating for electronic materials - never, ever. Gold plating is used for 3 main reasons - it doesn't corrode, it is highly conductive, and it is very solderable. Alloying the gold to that extent would affect all 3 of these characteristics in a negative manner.

As a general rule only: after dissolving the base metal, the more the gold plating breaks up into tiny flakes, the thinner it is. Note: the internal tensile stress of that particular deposit can also contribute to the breaking up of the gold plating.

Unless the plating is extremely thin, thin gold plating looks exactly like thick gold plating. To see what extremely thin gold plating looks like, look at the pale colored plating on such things as audio cables. Making the statement that this is very thick plating, simply by looking at it, only shows one's ignorance.

For those pins, I would guess there is about $0.50 worth of gold per square inch of plated area - maybe $0.10 per pin if you're lucky. 

Old doesn't necessarily mean thick (unless they were made in the 40s, or earlier, in most cases) and new doesn't necessarily mean thin. 

The only way you'll ever know the true value of plated material is to assay it or to refine it.


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## etack (Apr 4, 2012)

this is a pic of a fiber optic connector that where on some of my board from the 90s Mitsubishi controllers.

It looks to have two laser diodes in them. 

Eric


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## AztekShine (Apr 4, 2012)

I'm pretty shure I noticed a bait and switch in the first few post!


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## Harold_V (Apr 5, 2012)

dripsta23 said:


> Geo said:
> 
> 
> > ive never seen solid gold pins. what you are seeing is gold plating.take a file and cut a deep groove and drop some nitric on the cut.if it reacts with a green color, then its copper based.
> ...


How can you possibly know that it is "very thick plating"? Such items are made to specifications, and are plated only as deeply as required. You can not determine how thick the plating is by casual observation, nor would you be able to determine if it was thicker or thinner than like items. It just doesn't work like that. 

I've read only a few of the posts in this thread thus far, but it's obvious to me that you're not going to be easy to convince. Regardless of what you're told, you keep asking how to recover the gold. 

Let me give you a friendly tip. Stop doing that, and start reading Hoke's book, just as you've been advised. You will not get the answer you hope to get by continually asking, and for many good reasons. *Here, we do not hand feed the baby*. We expect that you will do as you're told, starting with reading Hoke's book, so you'll gain a basic understanding of the processes involved, and so you'll understand what others mean when they try to help you. If you do not, you won't benefit by the answers you'd receive, and will continue to ask what are, for the most part, stupid questions. From my vantage point, you appear to hope to schedule your recital, but you can't play the piano. That makes no sense. 

If you cop an attitude, your stay here will be very brief. We don't tolerate *anyone* who makes waves. 

So then, download Hoke's book and start reading. When you understand the basics, read the forum and come to understand the options that are at your disposal in ways to recover values, and how to refine them to pure. Only then will the readers offer suggestions. By then, you'll come to realize that you are not prepared to recover the values now, in spite of your wish to do so.

Harold


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## NobleMetalWorks (Apr 5, 2012)

dripsta23 said:


> Geo said:
> 
> 
> > ive never seen solid gold pins. what you are seeing is gold plating.take a file and cut a deep groove and drop some nitric on the cut.if it reacts with a green color, then its copper based.
> ...



How old are the acids in your test kit, if you purchased them from China, they may have been sitting on the shelf for awhile then shipped overseas, then lost their effectiveness and not give you a correct reading. Even with a correct reading acid tests are not spot on accurate, it's only a way of comparing the metal you are testing to a known benchmark. You can make the different acid tests yourself, fresh, I believe the formula's are right here on the forum, or if not you can read it in one of the books, Hoke goes into detail about testing precious metals.


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## dripsta23 (Apr 5, 2012)

I think the pins are a solid gold & copper alloy, not plated


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## Anonymous (Apr 5, 2012)

dripsta23 said:


> I think the pins are a solid gold & copper alloy, not plated


Absolutely not! They never have been made that way,and they never will be.


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## Geo (Apr 5, 2012)

i understand the government over spends sometimes (like a $200 hammer) but to use karat gold to make a connector pin would be insane. i have scrapped connectors from the space program that had enough gold plating that if it were melted together would have been considered karat gold, but it was still plated. you can believe what you want, but that doesnt make it right. if you did what i told you and you got a green reaction even with 14k test solution, that proves that its plated. if you were buying jewelry, and i came in with a ring and the test turned green, would you still pay me for karat gold? if you would, umm where are you located because i have some jewelry to sell.


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## Palladium (Apr 5, 2012)

Let us know how it works out for you!


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## NobleMetalWorks (Apr 5, 2012)

dripsta23 said:


> I think the pins are a solid gold & copper alloy, not plated



I think you are looking at the metal and seeing gold, where there is actually copper under gold. I'm not so sure the plating would be 14k, I have read spec sheets on I don't know how many electronic components have have only heard anyone refer to karat after it's been processed and they assign it a value, but that also might be a process that doesn't exclude other metals, only recovering and melting but not refining.

In any case, unless you know for sure, you should ask instead of speculate. Imagine all the accumulated knowledge and experience of all the experts in these forums. I would listen to what they have to say instead of jumping to conclusions or making wild assumptions. Not only will people respect you for being honest, but they are far more likely to want to help you.


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## Harold_V (Apr 6, 2012)

dripsta23 said:


> I think the pins are a solid gold & copper alloy, not plated


You need to stop talking about what you think, and do some reading so you understand the nature of things. You are killing too much of the time of those of us that keep watch of the forum, and are making statements that tend to be misleading. Those who know precious little take your comments for gospel, so there's a tendency to perpetuate misinformation. That is not the purpose of this board---we are here to ensure truth and honesty.

Harold


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## goldsilverpro (Apr 6, 2012)

dripsta23 said:


> I think the pins are a solid gold & copper alloy, not plated
> 
> I tested them with 10k nitric acid & with 18k acid it dissolved the pin leaving flakes of gold. Is this A fist?


To me, by doing that, you proved they are plated. To quickly test to see if something is gold plated and not just bare brass, I put a small piece or two in 50/50 hot nitric. If, after dissolving the base metal, there are flakes of gold floating around, I know it was gold plated.

Those pins are obviously a deep rich golden color. If they were solid 10K made up of only gold and copper, they would be a red or pink color.


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