How much Gold is in plated jewelery?

[Akragon]

 

[Akragon]

Said piece was plated twice? Once with copper and then with Gold?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Said piece was plated twice? Once with copper and then with Gold?

Gold plated items are usually plated with Nickel under the Gold.
If there is Copper the Copper has to be plated with Nickel so the Copper don't sublimate into the Gold.

 

[Akragon]

So the amount of Gold here could be placed on the head of a pin... neatly?

 

[Golddigger76]

It would make a cute little button lol
Often it's not much different than gold plating from circuit boards.
If you do it in large volume you'll have a big button to show off.

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

The short answer is, almost none. Gold and silver are 2 of the most reflective elements known to man. Modern plating processes allow for the deposition of the metals so scattered and thin that they are only a few atoms deep and don’t even completely cover the surface of the object being plated. The reflectivity of the metal gives the appearance of complete coverage and that appearance is all that matters.

 

[goldandsilver123]

A good plated piece can have 1% of its weight or more in gold

 

[Akragon]

A good plated piece can have 1% of its weight or more in gold

wouldn't that be GF or rolled?

 

[goldandsilver123]

quality fantasy jewelry (brand name one), that has some garantee in it will be around 7-20 ‰ of gold for chains and rings. pendants and earrings have less.

Of course there's lots of flash platings in the market.

 

[goldandsilver123]

wouldn't that be GF or rolled?

The pieces I have worked with were plated in cyanide gold solution up to 20 ‰, normally 10 ‰

 

[cejohnsonsr1]

That’s just wrong. Even filled doesn’t approach 1%.

 

[Sputtermick]

I had 5 pounds of new chains plated and got 0.5g of gold

 

[scrappyjoe]

... and that is what keeps me from buying anything on ebay to refine

 

[nickvc]

Perhaps the best question isn’t how much gold is there in gold plated jewellery but how much can I recover economically , some plated jewellery even has a coating over the plating which renders even cyanide processing near to impossible , it also depends on the substrate as to what is possible with any process.
If you have a quantity of one type of scrap it is much easier to find processes to recover the gold if it’s a mixed batch expect severe headaches trying to process it.