Question about plated coins?

JRocco

I have a real nice 72 DDO Lincoln that some brainiac in the past decided to gold plate. My question is, - Is there anyway to un-plate the coin without ruining it? I tried letting it sit in acetone for about 5 minutes hoping it may help, but it did not. Any help would be appreciated.

JRocco

ttt . Any ideas?

Myriads

I've never been a fan of those plated coins. There are a lot of the state quarters getting that of late. I can only imagine dealers having to tell hopefull civilains that the treasure they found is worthless. Once a coin is plated, I'm pretty sure that it's not unplateable. It's somehow annealed to the coin I fear.

Myriads

Conder101

Yes it can be helped.

The coin was plated by making it the negatively charged cathode in a solution capable of supporting an electric current (A mildly acidic solution or preferably a gold chloride solution) with a gold positively charged anode. When the DC current is applied electrons move from the cathode to the anode and positively charged gold ion move from the anode to the cathode and plate the coin.

If you reverse the current the ion will move in the other direction and remove the gold from the coin and plate the gold cathode. The downside is that the plating process isn't limited to gold and some copper ions will be stripped off of the coin as well during the unplating process. (If can be minimumized by using the gold chloride solution since the gold atoms already in solution will cause the gold plating process to proceed faster than the copper plating.) The result will be a 72 DDO that appears lightly cleaned. But which is better, a lightly cleaned 72 DD or a gold plated one?

This does work. I suggested it to a collector who had an uncirculated seated dollar that someone had gold plated and it worked beautifully leaving him with a lightly cleaned MS dollar.

Shamika

"The coin was plated by making it the negatively charged cathode in a solution capable of supporting an electric current (A mildly acidic solution or preferably a gold chloride solution) with a gold positively charged anode."

Probably not. I would bet it was sputter coated.

However, conder's suggestion on how to remove the plating should, in theory, still work.

lordmarcovan

...and you can make your own electrolysis rig with an AC adaptor from Radio Shack.

flaminio

I wonder if NCS is equipped to deal with this sort of thing. You might want to contact them and see -- or at least you can get it holdered as "genuine". Otherwise, Conder101's post seems like the way to go.

JRocco

Great advice. Thanks guys. I really appreciate the help.