Gold plated china and glass

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Dog Biscuit

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 18, 2007
Messages
55
Sometime back someone asked about gold plated china and glass. I have accumulated several pounds of this material. It's available everywhere. My favorite places are thrift stores and yard sales. The pictures below show some of the "good stuff" out there. I paid less than $1.50 for the lot. The price sticker, on the plate, came from a retail store where the plate didn't sell.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x73/Ooopsiemybad/JunkStoreGold003.jpg

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x73/Ooopsiemybad/JunkStoreGold002.jpg

See "Techniques" for my precessing method.
 
Figure about $.30 per square inch on the decorated glass. Figure about $.15 for gold leaf on art objects. The statue looks plated. If is is, figure on $.45/square inch. If it's not, it's $.15.
 
I began my quest for gold about two years ago with the acquisition of Megan Rose's material. As you can see in the pictures, I collected anything remotely resembling gold. Then reality hit. I had no idea how to recover the gold, and got no help from the "tutor".

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x73/Ooopsiemybad/Low-yield.jpg
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x73/Ooopsiemybad/Low-yield001.jpg
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x73/Ooopsiemybad/Low-yield002.jpg
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x73/Ooopsiemybad/High-yield.jpg

When I hit upon using AR, I was elated. I processed the entire batch with 2 cups Nitric Acid and 6 cups Muriatic.

Here is the result, a beautiful, but tiny .7 gram button.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x73/Ooopsiemybad/Glasswarenuggets002.jpg

My conclusion on the project: Processing is quick and inexpensive. I think Muriatic Acid/Chlorox may work and be cheaper yet. There is gold, and most of the time this material costs almost nothing. The yield is small, but if you can't bear throwing good gold in the trash, go for it.
 
Alot of china wear is easy to get ahold of for next to nothing and in most cases free. chipped china has no value but if it is gold flked then it does.

I got a bout a pound of paper book ends i have been collecting from old moldy encyclopedias. i'm hoping it has some yield to it as where i live i can get piles of encyclopedias for free.
 
Most of the higher yield material I processed here came from a Good Will outlet store. This is the last stop for donated materials before they are sent to a landfill. If you go to a retail store, expect to pay higher prices.

If you check the pictures, you will see one piece with a price sticker from a retail store. It did not sell there and made it to the outlet facility. I paid .39 cents a pound (around .45 cents).
 
I own one of these Savoy China vases, and will run a recovery and post results in mid January.

The method will be via running the vase through a ball mill, and AR extraction. I will post full results after completion.

Here is an interesting ebay link (not mine), I just found it when I was investigating my vase. Be sure to check out the other items at the bottom of the linked page.


http://cgi.ebay.com/Savoy-China-Weeping-Gold-Set-of-Four-Vases_W0QQitemZ250200018800QQihZ015QQcategoryZ4232QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

If the link does not work, run an ebay search on "Savoy China Weeping Gold"

[email protected]
 

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Golddigger,

I ran a few gold plated teapots back when this thread was first posted.

I used HCl-Cl and lowered the whole teapots right in. About 70% of the gold stripped off in two passes of ten minutes each.

If you use an AR bath you probably won't need to destroy the vases to get 100% of the gold from them.

Just a thought.

Steve
 
golddigger said:
I own one of these Savoy China vases, and will run a recovery and post results in mid January.

The method will be via running the vase through a ball mill, and AR extraction. I will post full results after completion.

Here is an interesting ebay link (not mine), I just found it when I was investigating my vase. Be sure to check out the other items at the bottom of the linked page.


http://cgi.ebay.com/Savoy-China-Weeping-Gold-Set-of-Four-Vases_W0QQitemZ250200018800QQihZ015QQcategoryZ4232QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

If the link does not work, run an ebay search on "Savoy China Weeping Gold"

[email protected]
Click to expand...


Hi,
I'm also interested in removing gold plate from china. I agree with Steve though that dipping would seem to be the best method. Personally I'm not concerned with keeping the china intact. However ball milling it would create a fine powdery mess that would probably plug up filters pretty quickly. Besides if it's not necessary why waste the time? You could decrease the amount of solution needed by breaking the item into chunks if necessary. I also wonder if heating might allow the HCL-Chlorox to dissolve the gold completely without resorting to AR?

On another note, does anyone know if gold plated china items with the "weeping gold" effect contain more gold than non-textured ones? Since it's just a glaze effect, I assume it has to be thicker where the drips are? If the gold somehow all migrates to the surface though, it might not make much difference.

macfixer01
 
I ran a few gold plated teapots back when this thread was first posted.

I used HCl-Cl and lowered the whole teapots right in. About 70% of the gold stripped off in two passes of ten minutes each.
Click to expand...

Steve,

What ratio of HCL to CL did you use?

Mike
 
The HCl-Cl reaction doesn't really require specific ratios to be effective. The main idea is to produce dissolved chlorine gas, but only enough to get the job done.

Any excess chlorine gas produced is lost as an off gas that creates handling problems.

The chlorine gas is produced by the reaction of HCl and clorox.

To answer your question about the teapots:

I poured 200 mL of HCl into a 1 L beaker. I lowered the mini-teapot into the HCl and then added approximately 5 mL of clorox. I swirled the flask until the no more bubbles formed. I let the teapot soak for 5 minutes and added another 5 mL of clorox and repeated the soak. I continued this process until the bulk of the gold was stripped from the teapot. I precipitated the solution with SMB.

Steve
 
Hi Steve:

I`m wondering how you prepared the solution before precipitating with SMB.

Did you heat the solution to drive off most of the residual Cl?

Also it would need neutralizing to around Ph 1.5 to 3. First I heat the solution to near boiling then add some salt, to help keep the Gold in solution,

My method of neutralizing is to use dilute NaOH at first, then a Carbonate, and finally dilute Sodium Bicarbonate.

Somewhere, long ago I vaguely remember reading an article in the `Chemical Abstracts` where the author discussed dissolving Gold with HCl-Cl.

He claimed you had to evaporate the entire solution to dryness, to eliminate all traces of free Chlorine, before you could get quantitative results.

Al
 
Al,

Many of the steps you mention about preparing your pregnant HCl-Cl solution for SMB precipitation are not necessary at all.

The key to proper precipitation is that your solution is not completely saturated with Cl2 gas. If it is this can easily be removed with gentle heating for 10 or 20 minutes.

I never perform any pH tests or neutralization reactions (sodium bicarb, sodium hydroxide, etc.) to the HCl-Cl solution.

I never evaporate the HCl-Cl solution to dryness.

I never add salt to my HCl-Cl solutions.

I seldom have to heat the HCl-Cl solution to drive off any excess chlorine.

The best way to get your gold to completely precipitate the first time, every time, is to control the amount of chlorine (Clorox) you add.

If you choose to use 'Super Bleach', the chlorine generated by the addition of the bleach will be double or more and will require you to remove the extra chlorine generated.

There is a saying in Chemistry which is counter intuitive to normal human behaviour it is :

"More is not always better"

Chemical reactions are driven by the proper proportions of ingredients and reaction conditions. Adding too much of, or unnecessary ingredients, in an attempt to make a 'better' reaction can cause undesirable results. In my book this falls into the 'GIGO' category. Even if a chemical compound is part of a given reaction, too much of it is considered garbage with respect to the overall reaction results.

Think of a reaction as a nice stew, too much of any one ingredient (salt for example) ruins the stew, not enough does the same. :wink:

Steve
 
Thanks for the info Steve!

But I`m wondering, If you don`t do any Ph adjustment. you are precipitating from concentrated HCL.

Unless their is so much Gold Trichloride (and base metals) in solution that the majority of the HCL has been used up?

SMB is generally thought to precip Gold best at a minimum Ph of 1. And as the Gold precips the Ph tends to go even lower. Too low of a Ph and you are not supposed to get a complete precip.

I do admit I sometimes tend to get lost in the woods (of stew). :?

Al
 
I would say be sure you check the price if it is good shape before you process. Some of the weeping gold pieces and the savoy can be worth more than the scrap gold value.
 
Hello all,

This is my first post and the best thing I did in my opinion was register for this site. What a ton of information from you folks. Continuing my high on information...

I have several pieces of gold plated / gilded pottery. All pieces are completely covered and are marked 22 karat gold - hand painted.

Is this worth processing if I accumulate several pounds of material? How much gold is really on the pottery or how much would you estimate it will yield much of the lot consists of vases and tea pots. I figured it will have more gold than PM chips etc since the chips are plated with a fine (finer) amount. I don't mind the cost really, as I do a little at time as far as purchasing, I don’t care about selling my recoveries, just finding the gold and having a fun hobby.

I saw the web video and the gentleman processed 6 ounces of chips, yielding a 3 gram button in the end. Any information, thoughts, opinions etc will be helpful.

Aaron
 
taylora said:
Hello all,

This is my first post and the best thing I did in my opinion was register for this site. What a ton of information from you folks. Continuing my high on information...

I have several pieces of gold plated / gilded pottery. All pieces are completely covered and are marked 22 karat gold - hand painted.

Is this worth processing if I accumulate several pounds of material? How much gold is really on the pottery or how much would you estimate it will yield much of the lot consists of vases and tea pots. I figured it will have more gold than PM chips etc since the chips are plated with a fine (finer) amount. I don't mind the cost really, as I do a little at time as far as purchasing, I don’t care about selling my recoveries, just finding the gold and having a fun hobby.

I saw the web video and the gentleman processed 6 ounces of chips, yielding a 3 gram button in the end. Any information, thoughts, opinions etc will be helpful.

Aaron
Click to expand...


Aaron,
Recovering 3 Grams from 6 Ounces of chips would be quite a haul! I'm not saying it's impossible but to contain that much gold I believe they would probably have to be specialized Mil Spec components, not the common PC processor types we mostly talk about here. I'd be interested in seeing that video you're referring to, do you have a link?

You might try the Search function here on the forum for more info on recovering gold from ceramic and porcelain. I seem to recall someone here estimated 30 to 40 Cents per square inch? I could be wrong, again that's just from memory and gold is higher now than when the post was written. If I find the information I'll see if I can direct you to it.

Welcome aboard,
macfixer01
 
Mac,

Sorry for the late reply I was busy with work this week. The website is http://www.goldrecovery.us/ and is Lazer Steve's Gold Refinging Page. I'm sure he said 3 gram button or had 3 grams of powder gold. I'll wait till you reply, you know what your looking for. Anyway if you have not already seen the site it is pretty interesting watching the man work on refining. It is great for new comers like me to watch also. Good info and he stresses safety with his process.

Regards,

Aaron
 

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