# Gold Leaf



## Catxyoli (Nov 19, 2008)

Hello my indague today is in regard of gold leaf or gold flakes gold leaf frequently comes in 14 to 24kt but it is "solid" gold or just plated like computer boards , are those gold flakes like sold in ebay worthwhile i have one of 1gr bought for 7€ (with ports) in my early times of ebay and some figaros gold filed of about 100gr total are they worth at least 50€ of gold

at least i'd like to think that way, even now im starting with refining im keep looking at them , but afraid to prove what i suspect

well if somebody have "experience" in this....!!! be my guest


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## butcher (Nov 19, 2008)

I would not mess with them you would pay more than they are worth,
fine gold can look like alot,even if they were as advertised.


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## ILikeBoats (Nov 19, 2008)

I think that 1 ounce of gold can be hammered out to 300 square feet or more of gold leaf.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldbeating

The leaf can be as little as 1/250,000 of an inch thick and is usually 23 karat or so.


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## Harold_V (Nov 20, 2008)

Catxyoli said:


> Hello my indague today is in regard of gold leaf or gold flakes gold leaf frequently comes in 14 to 24kt but it is "solid" gold or just plated like computer boards


Quality gold leaf is made of nearly pure gold, and is hand hammered. It is an excellent source of gold, assuming you can get to the waste material. I recovered more than two ounces off one job, but they are rare -----very rare, indeed! Only one in my more than 20 years of refining! 



> are those gold flakes like sold in ebay worthwhile i have one of 1gr bought for 7€ (with ports) in my early times of ebay and some figaros gold filed of about 100gr total are they worth at least 50€ of gold


Stay as far away from such offers as you can. They often contain no gold at all, and when they do, the price is far greater than the value. Those listings are for suckers that have no clue. 

The best possible source of scrap gold is from jewelry and dental appliances. 

Harold


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## viacin (Nov 20, 2008)

ya know, I 've always been curious of the exact yeild from those ebay flakes. I was bored and needed something to do last weekend and it just happened that my wife had a bag of those flakes from ebay at the house (my sister sells a few vials every now and then, yet another waste of money IMHO), so I took a sample and ran a test. I ran them through a nitric soak, and I recieved a 2% yeild. Bear in mind, this is still far from pure gold, but almost all of the base metals are gone.

A 2% yeild at 100 g is 2g. a 100 g bag costs $100. 2g of gold is worth about $48. And don't forget, after furthur processing, that 2% will be more like 1% or less. So, it's a waste of time. They are made of copper, brass, and gold. Some flakes did not disolve, and some disolved completly.

There are rumors of one seller on ebay that gets his flakes from an ink manufacture, and he says that they are 2K-3K. However he sells a lot of his to disney and carnival cruise lines, so good luck getting the price down enough to make a profit.


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## ppoowweerr (Feb 28, 2009)

I too was curious about them and bought a vial off ebay for a not so great deal. The seller claimed solid 24K gold. I put them in HCl for a few minutes with no reaction whatsoever. I added 1 drop of H2O2 and the leaf reacted quickly to show mostly copper and very little gold. It all went into solution in a few minutes and tested negative with fresh SnCl so the gold is at such a low ratio that I didnt care to waste more time on it.


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## istari9 (Feb 28, 2009)

Check the E-bay posts in this forum the flakes are mentioned there. I do believe they are NOT really gold at all, Buyer Beware!

Ray 8)


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