I've looked at the history of platinum usage for research a few years ago and came across very interesting articles. While I can go and start writing about how scarce it is to where it's currently being mined - I'll leave that to google. The only officially struck platinum coins that did circulate was from 1828 - 1845 in Russia. What I am more interested is when exactly did gold plated platinum coins started to circulate and when it ended. From my understanding, during the Spanish conquest of South America, platinum was usually found with gold and it was an undesirable metal. It was difficult to melt down with the technology back then. Therefore platinum was cheaper than gold. Counterfeiters like in any other era will find the best way to make profit. As platinum is denser than gold and much cheaper than gold, it is not too difficult to match the weigh unlike using cheap base metals. By gold plating platinum coins, the weight could be around the same or slightly heavier. Now comes the questions which I struggled to find. 1) What is the earliest event of gold plating platinum and when did it end? Can we put an year of when is the first known gold platinum coin and last dated gold plated platinum coin? (obviously not the modern gold-platinum plated state quarter coins...) 2) Were gold plating platinum coins manufactured by counterfeiters only or some were officially struck by mints? Reason why I asked is the details of some coins just look too good to be counterfeit. 3) What countries were involved in this? As far as I know, Spain, France and England had such coins. Are there more to this list? I think I remember seeing a Russian gold coin that is plated platinum however this is a unique example. 4) When the plating eventually wear off, did such coins continue to circulate or were they immediately removed and culled as counterfeit? Or did they continued to circulate until platinum prices rose and that caused their downfall? There is a book that I wanted to get hold of, which is a book that describes the technology St. Petersburg used to strike the first Ural platinum coins and how they managed to get around various challenges. There could be more books that I am unaware of. Finally, to end this, this is an example that I obtained a while ago. Just never got around to catalog what I have. As you can see, there are signs of wearing and some silvery parts show up. I know some would ask if this was actually plated silver but this coin is actually slightly heavier than a genuine example. There are also scratch marks and I'm certain this was done back in the days to find out if this was real gold or gold plated platinum. I personally find it quite neat considering how many questions this coin made me think. If you have any gold plated platinum coins, please feel free to post!
Very nice coin! If you know of some for sale, let me know. I've been wanting to pick one up. I know that these counterfeits were popular in South America because of Colombia being a large producer of Platinum. I would guess that they were also being used in Brazil. There isn't a lot of information out there on these. I also know that there are some US pre-33 gold fakes that were made out of Pt but I'm not sure if these would be legal to own. BTW, those Russian Pt coins look great. I would love to one day own a 12 rouble piece. Just need to come up with $100K to buy one.
THe first counterfeiting of gilded platinum coins occured in Columbia where dishonest workers in the mints first used solid platinum with a thin gilding and later a copper core, a thin platinum mid-layer and then the gilding. My research is continuing - see Coronado's book on Spanish counterfeits - late 18thC is your answer. Realize the fist object made in Spain from Chabaneau's malleable platinum was Francisco Alonso's chalice presented to Carolus III and then given to Pope Pius VI in 1789. Coins with struck platinum cores and being gilded preceeded this event hence their contemporary counterfeit coin status and Columbia origin. This will be discussed in my new book on CCs in 2017. John Lorenzo Numismatist United States
