Rhodium finish.

[silversaddle1]

So our local junk auction guy call me up and says he has a bunch of 60-70's vintage jewrey and one of the lots is a braclet and earrings that say rhodium finished on them. These will sell dirt cheap I'm sure. Worth messin with? I'm guessing there would be very little plating on it.

 

[qst42know]

Lazersteve posted a link for an article on rhodium plating in which they figured they could plate 380 rings with a solution that contained 1 gram of rhodium. Thats about 23 cents worth of rhodium per ring.

 

[silversaddle1]

Do you think the plating was that thin back in the 60-70's?

 

[qst42know]

Would it matter if it were quadruple plate?

Save them when they come with things of value. But I wouldn't bid on them individually.

 

[silversaddle1]

I'm not going to buy them, just trying to help him out on value. Told him little or no value.

 

[goldsilverpro]

In the 60s, Rhodium was plated on jewelry about the same thickness it is now, 4 to 8 millionths of an inch. Dollar-wise, that's the equivalent of gold plating that's 6 to 12 millionths of an inch thick. That's about $.07 to $.14 per square inch of plated area.

 

[qst42know]

From reading the link Steve posted, rhodium plating is sort of self limiting. That is beyond a thickness limit the finish appearance degrades and defeats the purpose of the plating. So more isn't better for Rh plating.

http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=7001

 

[lazersteve]

From reading the link Steve posted, rhodium plating is sort of self limiting. That is beyond a thickness limit the finish appearance degrades and defeats the purpose of the plating. So more isn't better for Rh plating.

http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=7001

If your goal is to merely recover the Rh, perhaps the quality of the plating is not as important as the separation of the Rh in pure a marketable form, without the need to fuse the Rh.

Steve