A gold penny can be a regular penny treated to look golden, or an ancient British coin worth twenty pence. Making a gold penny is a popular science experiment, but requires caution when using sodium hydroxide. To make a homemade gold dime, mix sodium hydroxide and zinc, heat it, and put a copper penny in the mixture for two to three minutes. Then heat the silver penny over a Bunsen burner until it turns gold. However, the result is actually brass, not real gold. King Henry III of England also created a gold penny, but its value was set too low and most were melted down for their gold.
Generally, when we talk about a gold penny, we are talking about an ordinary penny that has been treated to give it a golden colour. In some cases, however, a cent may actually have been plated with gold. And in some even rarer cases, a dime may have been accidentally struck on a blank of the wrong metal. The gold penny is also the name given to an ancient British coin, worth twenty pence.
Making a gold penny is a common science experiment, especially at the K-12 level. Many teachers use it to discuss the ancient study of alchemy and how it relates to modern chemistry. It also demonstrates some basic chemistry concepts while providing a concrete result that students can take home and can be quite exciting for younger students.
To make a homemade gold dime, you’ll need a regular copper penny, a Bunsen burner, and a mixture of sodium hydroxide and zinc. You’ll also need to wear proper safety gear, including goggles and gloves, and have a pair of pliers to handle the dime. Sodium hydroxide can be very dangerous if mishandled, so it’s important to be careful every step of the way.
The mixture of zinc and sodium hydroxide should be placed in a vessel and placed over the Bunsen burner. It should remain on the heat until it begins to boil, at which point the regular copper penny can be poured into the mixture. It should remain in the mixture for two to three minutes, then it should be removed with tongs and allowed to dry on a paper towel. The color at this point should be more or less silver, as the zinc has formed a thin layer on the outside of the copper.
Next, the silver penny should be held with tongs over the direct heat of the Bunsen burner until the color changes. Once the silver penny starts turning into a gold penny, it should be removed from the heat and placed on a non-flammable surface to cool. The dime will now look like gold, although in reality it just happened that the heat caused the zinc to mix with the copper. This essentially forms the metal known as brass, which is commonly mistaken for gold, although it is much less yellow and has an entirely different texture. So the dime that most people make can be more accurately described as a brass penny.
A gold penny can also refer to the coinage used during the reign of King Henry III of England. Before his reign, most of the high-value coins used in England came from the Byzantine Empire or Arabia, but during his reign, in 1257, he saw the need for a local currency capable of handling transactions larger. So he had a gold penny created, which on one side represented him on a throne, and on the other side featured a cross and flowers. King Henry III unfortunately set the value of this penny too low, compared to the actual price of gold, and therefore most coins were melted down to be sold as pure gold, making a real gold penny of this era rather rare.
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