So I got a very bad lesson in chemistry today. Heat plus gold plus lead solder equals a bad day for me. I bought a 2.5 peso coin recently (below spot thankfully) that was soldered to a tie tack. Thinking that I am smart and have some handy skill I decided I'd take a small hot iron to the solder with some copper wire to soak it up and remove the stupid tie tack. This did not go as well or as fast as I thought so I decided to take a small torch to it to speed it up. BAD idea. The lead in the solder I think reacted with the heat and really jacked up the coin. Everywhere there was solder on the coin now looks like it has been eaten away. Where the tie tack was it is still normal looking. There was some porosity to the point there is a small pin hole through the coin!?! of yeah and now the weight is down too. It should be about 2.1 grams but not it is like 1.8 grams. It was a bullion coin so not worth much more than the gold weight but now it looks like hell. I might try to at least polish some of the fire scale off of it. Today's lesson: don't play with fire kids!
We need to see pictures! I had heard about the problems with lead solder on gold but never witnessed it first hand.
Gave me quite a start when I saw the topic line. Back when I was an innocent young lassie, to 'jack up' meant "intravenous injection". I thought here's the ultimate gold bug!!!
Hey everyone, I'll try to snap a few photos later. Stupid chemistry! lol Not sure if I'll melt it or not. Might just keep it for the time being... it is so ugly though! Maybe I'll eat my losses and take to a "we buy gold" shop and get like $40 for it. I dunno. And no I won't be doing that again! I think I'll take it to a jewler next time Yeah I should have been mindful of slang. I keep forgetting most folks here are used to different slang terms. I had a couple mates from Sydney trying to teach me their slang. I just sort of gave up after "she'llberight." But no, no IV gold (yet...) lol
