mini coins

[gbaldwin75]

i am curious if anyone knows what the base metal in those little 10mm gold plated coin replicas?

 

[shyknee]

dont waste your $ & time

 

[LeftyTheBandit]

Don't waste you time. Been there done that, 1st gold buy on ebay, still have some, mounted on my wall as the stupidest buy in my lifetime, the shipping cost more than the coins, probably worth more.

 

[gbaldwin75]

i didnt pay for them they were given to me. i wouldnt pay for stuff like this, just curious as to whether i could throw these in with fingers or other batches i plan to do soon.
thanks

 

[jimdoc]

I think throwing them into a batch of clean fingers would be a mistake. Clean fingers are about the easiest thing to process, why add anything to give you possible problems. I would try them in the sulphuric cell when you get enough other plated material to run.
Jim

 

[Oz]

Something to consider is that unless someone knows what base metals are in these things you may want to keep them out of concentrated sulfuric and running the chance of having a violent reaction or a problematic fouled solution as a result.

I would inquart these given their small size then treat with nitric to avoid the possible outcomes I see with concentrated sulfuric.

I should state that I do not use sulfuric cells, so Jim’s advice could easily be better than mine.

I definitely agree that you do not want to run them with your fingers.

 

[shyknee]

I beleave there is no gold in them and if it is plated it is only flash plating on an allready gold colored alloy
again my guess is there is no gold at all try a stannous test with a drop of AR or AP before you waste acid and time
if you do through in with fingers you will never know if there was gold

 

[gbaldwin75]

thank you all for your input, it is greatly appreciated.

 

[Oz]

By all means let us know your results.

 

[Harold_V]

I beleave there is no gold in them and if it is plated it is only flash plating on an allready gold colored alloy

If that's true, all you need do is file a tiny notch in one of the pieces, using the corner of a file. To this notch, apply a drop of nitric acid. If they are a copper based alloy (most likely), you'll get an instant green reaction. Assuming they are karat gold (unlikely), depending on the alloy, they'd do nothing at all, or get slightly discolored, leaning towards a brown color.

It's important that a notch be filed, otherwise, assuming they are plated, the drop of nitric may not penetrate the plating, leading you to believe that they are karat or pure gold.

Harold