excellent source

graemeingermany · Dec 7, 2007

HI All ,being new here I thought it was about time I earned my membership, I am buying and selling a lot on ebay and my father in law is always overloading my watch list ( with crap) excuse my language, yesterday he recieved his most recent purchase. 2 coffee tables, he knows I am buying gold cos there's always some in the watch list and he was hoping to resell the tables for a profit in his shop. to cut a long story short they were totally kaputt and he was going to give a shocking feedback and try to send them back , I have so far collected about 20 grams of 1 mil gold plate off the first and have only touched the top and 1 leg not to mention the underside and the other smaller table.

goldplated furniture , who would have guessed and if it's damaged you can get it real cheap 35 usd for both tables with post
the plate scrapes off with lemon juice ( the juice eats the plaster underneath) and a craft knife blade
this table is 2.5 foot high and 2 foot across
I'll process it seperately and post a photo of the yeild... as I really want to know how much there is

I would also like to publicly thank Lasersteve, Noxx and Harold. the information you guys post here is priceless

P.S. sorry about the bad quality photos the plaster is the white the gold plate is the browny yellow stuff.

goldsilverpro · Dec 7, 2007

Something doesn't sound right. Are you sure it's gold? Might very well be brass. Dissolve a little bit and test it. Also, I've never seen decorative gold plate that even comes close to 1 mil thick. There's no reason to do it. Plus, it would take a 250 gallon tank, containing at least 400 oz of gold just to plate an object that size, that thick. If real gold is used on a piece like that, it would be common to use gold leaf, which is about .003 mils thick.

Sorry to be such a skeptic. Hope I'm wrong.

Harold_V · Dec 7, 2007

A drop of nitric acid will yield everything you need to know about what you're stripping. If you get any blue coloration, pretty good bet you're stripping a copper alloy of sorts. I tend to agree with Chris (GSP) that it may not be gold at all..

I had one experience, priceless, really. Symphony Hall in Salt Lake City, Utah, has a large concrete wall that is covered in gold leaf. I was fortunate to be the one that did the cleanup after the leaf was applied. The wall is huge--perhaps 30 feet in height, and 80 feet wide. Immediately below the wall is a huge chamber that is the air return plenum for air conditioning for the building. While the openings would eventually be covered with brass grill work, they were open, and acted as the collector for the leaf that was wasted, ending up in a large collection in the chamber and on large filters. To make the very long story short, including vacuuming the entire area, I recovered slightly over two troy ounces of pure gold from this project-----and found gold leaf stacked deep enough to be measured in inches in many areas of the chamber in question.

Bottom line? Not likely you have much gold, if any, but I agree---it's better to recover than discard, assuming it's not too labor intensive.

Let us know---

Harold

graemeingermany · Dec 7, 2007

I have mixed up a small batch of AP solution and it have been standing now for 12 hours at 20deg C slight bubbling , but only a slight change to amount of gold visible yet and it is slighty murky(plaster?) and very light green, I believe it may be gold over copper ,hence the thickness , but I have the original purchase recept for italy in 1969 I won't tell you what the sucker paid and it states in italian 18kt goldplated , but it is definately gold.
but I shared your concern at first, I don't know what processes were used over here in the late 60's or what you would need to plate something this size , but I believe it was one of many mass produced for the tourist market in venice and germany was very rich back then, my mother in law has a 14kt cutlery set (unfortunatley I can't go near it) :twisted: but they paid about 5000 usd for 30 pieces.
I guess time will tell , I'll keep you posted.

graemeingermany · Dec 7, 2007

If I get a third of an ounce i'll be very happy at 540 euro per ounce , gold on ebay over here is selling 2 or 3 euro per gram above spot. none of these sleasey buyer giving you 80% or less.