Can gold be reclaimed from old dishes with gold trim

A. Hi Debi. The question of recovering the gold is addressed on this page, but you probably won't like the answer :-(

There are lots of sites offering 'instant appraisals', but they are pay sites, so you might look for similar stuff on eBay or Etsy first to see typical prices and competition. I think trying to sell them is a better answer than trying to recover the gold value.

Luck & Regards,

A. I have processed/recovered gold from china/plates, etc. However you will need a trash can filled with items to get anything back since it's generally plated in micrograms. The items I acquired came pretty much free. However, as an experiment I purchased gold trimmed items (very Selectively) to the tune of $100. I'll be doing the procedure to remove, drop and melt. Once completed, I'll report back. I may even refine twice to ensure .995

Update OK, Sorry for the delay in reporting the final result. One of the largest plates I had, almost fully covered, was not gold! As it turned out I retrieved .6g of tested 22kt. About $30. Not a good return for an amateur. However, if you have a huge pile of them for no cost like I have now, it will be fun to see. As I process larger quantities and make small beads, they eventually will be melted together, refined with inquarting silver and refined to .995 or better.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanuka to all. "Z"

A. It's normally very thin and is a waste of time and effort to try and recover the gold. From my experience, the gold value usually runs about $0.05 per square inch, or less, of the area covered by gold.

A. Hi Sheila. If it's that thick, scrape it off with an Exacto Knife ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil link] . Make sure you're wearing goggles ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil link] ; you don't want a pottery chip, let alone a shard of a blade, in your eye. Good luck.

But what looks like raised, thick blobs of gold grapes may only be thin gold paint over raised, thick blobs in the porcelain. Let us know.

Regards,

A. The problem with recovering gold from glass or ceramics is that what you see is not surface gold. It is very finely divided gold suspended in a glaze. That is, the gold metal is dispersed in a low melting glass.

There is no practical method for an amateur to extract it and professional refiners do not find it economic, even at today's gold prices.

Sorry but old glazed pots are zero value scrap.

Antiques Roadshow

"Hand-Held X-Ray Analyzer"
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A. Hi Gerry. There are acid tests for gold as described in topic 427/65, and there are electronic gold testing machines. And if you have a friend at a scrap yard, an X-ray fluorescence alloy sorter / scrap sorter ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil link] can determine that without even touching it. You can search the site for "gold testing".

But if you feel that this piece might be valuable, I think you should take it to a reputable antique dealer for assessment. As we see on Antiques Roadshow, expertise and historical knowledge can trump testing.

Regards,

A. Ceramic gold glazes are effectively encased in glass.
Neither chemical or electrical testing will work.
X-ray fluorescence analysis should be fine if you can find someone with the kit.
However the gold value of a glazed vase is near zero and reclaiming any gold would be extremely difficult and far outweigh the reward. Not to mention destroying the vase.

A. If you think it might be a significant amount, the answer to the question how do you go about reclaiming it is to crush into a fine powder and pan it as the gold is significantly heavier it will remain the last thing in the pan.

A. Hi Lyn. It sounds highly unlikely to me, but take one broken plate to a "We Buy Gold" shop and see what they say. As Geoff notes, even testing it is difficult. Are you certain that krazy glue repair is hopeless?

Regards,

A. Why don't you research & sell on eBay for "scrap" ?

A. Hi Andre. That link is an offer to sell glass of almost any thickness, type, color, with any kind of edges; unfortunately there is no indication how much gold is on it.

I'm not an expert on such glass, but quick googling indicates that such gold coatings sometimes approximate 20 nanometers in thickness. If that estimate is about right, there could be 4 cc's of gold there, which isn't insignificant -- but I don't know how to practically recover it. We'll see what, if anything, other readers say :-)

Regards,

A. Hi Xavier. It probably isn't; it's probably a gold paint fired onto the ceramic like the gold edging on some dishes. You probably have thoughts in your mind that you haven't shared with us yet.

Regards,

Gold Leaf Kits

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A. If you really believe your dishes, glasses and whatnot might be of high value ... As these gentlemen have suggested, you need to first think of how much it would cost to take it off, then to extract it from whatever the substrate.

I'd highly suggest first though to look on an art website for genuine gold leaf (or whatever metal it is you happen to have stuck on those plates, etc.). I believe just visualizing how much gold is in a book of gold leaf and then realizing the cost to extract it from all sources, I think you'l begin to get a sense of how much it costs for the volume you have. If the item you have is 100X the amount of gold in one of those books, then by all means, bring it to someone for evaluation. If it is similar, I wouldn't bother. If it is somewhere in between, recognize the amount of work involved in taking it off and then separating it. Chances are you'll still come up short for making money because something that has that much gold is typically considered "jewelry" or the like.

Unless you're a former Russian Czar, the gold was used for decorative purposes and not really to enhance the value. No one would have put that much money into investing in kitchenware, etc. that could be broken or go out of style. They would have put it into gold bars. There's no practicality to people putting enough gold on everyday items back then or now! I had some beautiful gold Gucci water glasses. You think Gucci, you think chances are it's a decent amount of gold. But nope. It was just for decoration. Not even Gucci wants to part with their money to put it on an everyday item! lol. I'm just trying to help some people to see the practical side of this. Trust me, I'm just like everyone else that wishes it were valuable. But it is very, very rarely the case.

A. Hi Kate. You might compare your set to similar stuff on eBay and decide whether or not to make the effort to list it on eBay or Etsy. If you can't sell it, I'd suggest displaying the one or two best small pieces in a china cabinet as a more powerful remembrance as well as a far more practical one than a piece of jewelry.

Or, if you have a good sized attic, basement, or garage, store it away for your grand-daughter or great grand-daughter. Tastes change, styles come and go, and what is quite out of style today might be tremendously appreciated by a future generation.

Luck & Regards,