Gold plated china

Hello Orchid:

Between prospecting trips I have taken up a hobby of collecting gold
plated china from second hand stores. Some of it has a % gold rating
stamped on the back (eg 22 carat) and some china has a gold coloured
check mark on the back.

Does this check mark indicate gold plate? If so, what is its
history?

I have started bonding chips of gold ore to these plates for wall
hangings so I want to learn more about the plates too.

Piper the Prospector

Dear Piper, When discussing gold plating on porcelain, or bone china- you are outside the realm of mainstream jewelry. As a Jeweler, and a hobby potter I can tell you the gold plating on pottery is different than jewelry gold plating. The gold chloride is suspended in a resinous base that is painted on with a paint brush, and is the last thing applied to the pottery as it is fired at a much lower temperature than the clay (porcelain, bone china) and the glaze, and the hand painted or transfer color decorations. Interestingly if you dilute your gold luster to much you will get a pink/purple color rather than gold. So studying gold lusters, or lustres, depending on where you hail from will be where you can learn more about this. I hope this helps.

The question is an 11 year old post, but if anyone is interested in gold luster on pottery, there will be info in some stoneware glaze books and also there are some youtube videos on gold luster. And, yes, I agree, it is not anything like jewelry plating, instead being a low fire (cone 017-020) overglaze applied to pottery that has already been glazed, probably at stoneware/porcelain temperatures. Painted on and then (re)fired. -royjohn

Regarding the gold lustre, I did have an enamel piece that needed something, so a glass artist I know lent me enough gold lustre to put a few flourishes on the finished piece. Can’t remember now but she probably fired it for me, it came out very nicely.

Noralie