GoldPaq

Gold, as one of the world’s most precious metals, is highly sought after, and due both to its relative rarity and the demand for it, gold is often too expensive for many to afford, or impractical for all the ways people desire to use this.

For these, and other myriad reasons, base metal, copper, brass, silver, or even non-metal items are often given a coating of gold. This coating of gold gives the impression that the item is gold, or just gives it a more attractive finish. A good example of gold being used as a plating is in silver services; gold, much too soft to be used as silverware in its purest form, and too expensive besides, is often plated over the silver or steel used to create table settings, giving these items the luster and beauty of gold, while still being practical enough both for use and purchase.

The history of plating items with gold is long, and the many different ways of adding the touch of gold to items are many.

One of the oldest methods of adding a gold look to items is gilding. Accomplished by attaching thin sheets of gold to an object, gold gilding can be traced back to the Egyptians, who gilded wood and metal. The practice of gilding was mentioned by Pliny the Elder in ancient Rome, where gold gilding was applied to architectural details including ceilings, ornamental moldings, and even walls. The gold used in these ancient Egyptian and Roman applications was so thick that traces of it can still found on existing items from these civilizations.

The Egyptians and Romans were not the only civilizations who gilded items; Asian cultures have also used gilding in their arts, and the Indian culture, which places a high importance on gold culturally, also has a long history of using gold for gilding purposes.

Gilding items with gold is still a widespread practice today. Most gilding these days is done either by mechanical gilding processes, in which the gold for gilding is placed upon the item to be gilded and burnished onto the surface, or by chemical gilding, which different chemical processes and tools are used to chemically gild the surface with gold.

Some items on which gilding is common include pottery and porcelain, the silver applications mentioned above, book and other leather gilding, and home decoration applications.

Another method of coating items in gold is by electroplate. Unlike gilding, which uses thin gold foil sheets, electroplating uses a chemical process to deposit a layer of molten gold onto the item being electroplated. There are several different chemical processes used in electroplating, most of which employ the use of cyanide.

Electroplating’s history is nowhere near as storied as gilding’s history, and the applications for gold plating are fewer, as well. Although jewelry is commonly gold plated, much of the use of electroplating is in the electronics sector. Due to gold’s corrosion-resistance, it is often used in the production of solid-state electronics, and, more recently, in the internal working of computers.

Another method of applying gold to another metal is vermeil. Originally developed in France in the 1700s, vermeil is the name for gold applied to sterling silver, often using other precious metals, as well.

Vermeil items were initially produced by a fire-gilding process, in which gold was applied to the sterling silver and other precious metals by means of heating the gold with fire. This method was abandoned, however ? and even banned in some countries ? after it was discovered that the mercury used in the process caused blindness.

The method may have changed, but vermeil is still a popular way of adding a gold touch to sterling silver. Nowadays, this is accomplished by using electrolysis rather than fire-gilding, a much safer method.

Although it was once used extensively for many applications that called for silver to be coated with gold, vermeil is used now primarily for jewelry. However, the White House has an entire room dedicated to vermeil, bequeathed to the White House by Margaret Thompson Biddle. The Vermeil Room, as it is known, houses a collection with items that ranges from the Renaissance to nineteenth century French and English pieces. Many of the pieces are large, including wine coolers, vases and tea services.

While gold’s preciousness and relative expensiveness make it unsuitable for many applications, gold plating and gilding processes allow everything from table wear and automotive trim to jewelry and electronics to wear a coat of gold even some very unusual goldplating items. Although not exactly the real thing, gold plating and gilding allow many of us to get as close to gold as possible.

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