Sweated Gold Coins
CoinZealot
Posts: 229
Anyone have any pictures of the aftermath of "sweating" gold coins? Appreciated.
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Here is an interesting newspaper article, written in 1899, regarding the sweating of gold coins.
The process described involved the use of aqua regia, a highly corrosive blend of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, to dissolve tiny amounts of gold from the surface of coins.
<< <i>Here is an interesting newspaper article, written in 1899, regarding the sweating of gold coins.
The process described involved the use of aqua regia, a highly corrosive blend of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, to dissolve tiny amounts of gold from the surface of coins. >>
Excellent article.
I am more familiar with the term "sweating gold" being used to refer to the alternate process described in the article of placing gold coins in a bag and jangling them together over and over, so that small bits of gold are dislodged from each coin and captured in the bag. The article refers to "Chinamen" doing it, but I remember reading a book about Australian numismatics that described a prosperous rancher doing the same thing with sovereigns.
<< <i>Anyone have any pictures of the aftermath of "sweating" gold coins? Appreciated. >>
The crooks would put several gold coins in a box and shake the box vigorously for several minutes. They would then spend the coins or deposit them at the bank for full face value. The gold dust left in he box would be collected as their reward. Any heavily contact marked gold coin may have been sweated.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Shaking up coins in a box or bag certainly would have been easier (and safer!) than working with hazardous chemicals.
Besides that, it's not like every general store at the time was well stocked with hydrochloric acid!
While we're on the topic, here's another article about sweating gold coins, this one written in 1910.
It describes yet another method of removing gold, electroplating, where the coin is used as a source of gold to plate some other object in a chemical bath with electric current applied. Only a tiny amount of gold is removed from the coin, and evenly enough from all parts of the coin so as to be undetectable and taken for normal wear.
Latin American Collection
<< <i>Can we assume that they did not do this to gold dollars, because you don't sweat the small stuff?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
<< <i> because you don't sweat the small stuff? >>
<< <i>
<< <i> because you don't sweat the small stuff? >>
<< <i>Can we assume that they did not do this to gold dollars, because you don't sweat the small stuff?
Oh my ! And vaudeville comes to the Forums.
R.I.P. Bear
I must be getting too old. That writing seemed perfectly normal to me.