Gold Plated Trophies

[AgAuPtRh]

Some years back, while getting ready to leave a yard/barn sale a flash caught me eye in the trash pile. I went over and kicked the box I suspected and out popped a Trophy Base. Bakelite with an engraved plate on the front and cool Art Deco Design. No trophy on the top though. The date was 1930 something.

The property owner saw me in trash pile. heh heh I've been asked to not do that before. LOL but she thought it was great that I took interest and told me she had 3 boxes full of Trophies to get rid of. I asked how. The price sounded great to me and home I went.

Now I have about 50 or so Gold Plated Trophies. All Horses. Different sizes. I'd like to think the yield for recovery would be fairly interesting. None was dated after 1944.

Have any of you ever had experience in recovering plated Gold from Trophies? These-I'm certain have a pewter/lead base and are quite heavy.

 

[Noxx]

Never tried... You should try renverse electroplating. I think you could get good results.

 

[lazersteve]

I have no idea how much to expect from these items, but I'm pretty certain they will strip in the Electrolytic Cell in the tutorials section with a few modifications:

1) change the volume of the cell proportionally to accept the trophy,
2) increase the electrolyte content to fill the larger volume,
3) increase the size of the cathode to match the length of the trophy,
4) configure the cell vertically instead of horizontal,
5) attach a small (19 guage) SS wire to the submerged trophy to form the anode
6) Increase the amps of the Charger

Steve

 

[AgAuPtRh]

I've been told the lead creates problems in the reverse plating process

 

[AgAuPtRh]

A 2 quart pyrex ought to be good enough. I've already tried the largetst Trophy and it fits good.

One more project for the summer. heh heh.