Bicentennial yIKES - Gold plated is Gold Enough

I went coin hunting at the bank just now. They said they had no halves but had 4 gold plated Eisenhower's and ensured me that they are legal currency. How much? $1 each. 4 of them? Sold. Good enough for me! No-risk coin collecting fun time.

So I weighed them. I see they are clad, yes, but each one is heavier... from the gold plating. The coins were weighed with a properly calibrated scale. {23.53g, 23.33g, 22.85g, 22.94g} A clad IKE is normally 22.68g.

We could talk statistics and compare the mean weight of my population sample (4) to a known mean using a one sample t Test...which I did. Ready?

t=(xbar - u0)/sx
sx=s/sqrt(n)

if t>t-table with degrees of freedom n-1 @ .95 confidence level we can reject the null hypothesis.

n=4, xbar=23.16g, u0 = 22.68g, s=standard deviation of my sample
Results:
Sx =.3216 and t = 3.000

One tailed t-table @ .95 conf and 3 d.o.f. reads 2.353.
My t value is 3, which is greater than the t-table's 2.353
SO...
My coins are statistically heavier than usual. From gold.

 

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Congrats you get 0.2 grams of free gold or so per coin!

 

At $56/gram

 

So total value would be around $15

 

I wonder how one could release the gold. Suppose you could smelt it or something, but that seems like a lot of trouble

 

A true numismatic would never take melt value and destroy coins. I like the ikes.

 

Assuming all the above math is correct.......

.2 grams at $56 a gram = $ 11.20 + $4.00 face = $15.20. total for the 4.
I too have a gold plated IKE. For some reason they are showing up now. There is another at my LCS

 

An Ike dollar is 22.68g (+/-) 0.907 grams weight tolerance. this is not a good indicator of how much gold plating there is.

Ok gold plating.
the general acceptable, gold plating thickness is 0.5 microns.

12.45mg for each square inch of area gold plated to a thickness of one micron.

so, this coin is 6.225mg per square inch at "acceptable" plating for jewelry,,, up to 1 micron thickness on the high side for industrial gold plating.

1.18 square inches per side, and a little something for the edge which I don't feel like calculating. heck, lets round it up to 3 square inches of surface area.

18.68mg - 37.35mg

so $1.044 - $2.088 of gold plating on each Ike dollar would be a reasonable estimate.

HOWEVER, they would be charging you to reclaim it, no value there to de-plate them and reclaim the gold. just not worth the effort. it's $4-$8 in total. it's got to be enough of it to justify the cost of the near pure sulfuric acid, which runs about $1200 per liter, or $1.20 per millilitre.

Nobody is paying for the gold plating that's for sure. someone might save up a few tons and do a big batch reclamation, but this still isn't really worth the health and safety....

And that's IF it's actually gold plating, and not fake gold to begin with.

Hate to burst you're bubble, but this is the reality of it.