Gold ink
Real gold ink is an ink that is made from gold by adding metallic effect pigments .
The preparation of gold effect colors is as old as the craft of Goldschläger whose "waste" from the preparation of gold leaf are processed together with a binder to form paints or varnishes. Many different techniques have been used to make gold powder over time. Attempts were made early on to replace, imitate or simulate the expensive ingredient gold with other substances such as brass . The gold can be amalgamized with the help of mercury . The writing or drawing can also be polished with the help of a polishing stone . Magnificent miniatures made of gold ink can be found in medieval manuscripts such as the Codex Aureus Pultoviensis .
The specialist trade has long referred to real gold color as shell gold, but this only has to do with shells as the gold pigment used to be traded in shell shells. In addition to the pigments fish silver , vermiculite powder and lapis lazuli powder, gold powder aka shell gold is the most valuable pigment .
For the "simple gold ink" or "gold bronze" available today, different colored bronze powders are used instead of gold, which have similar optical properties but are much cheaper; however, they cannot be polished and the shine is unlikely to last for centuries.
See also
literature
Vera Trost: Gold and silver inks Technological investigations into occidental chrysography and argyrography from late antiquity to the high Middle Ages. (Phil. Diss. Würzburg 1983), Wiesbaden Harrassowitz, 1991, ISBN 3447029021 .