Science: Better Gold

At Attleboro, Mass., the General Plate Company, manufacturing jewelers, announced, naturally without metallurgical particulars, that its 26-year-old superintendent, Victor D. D’Avignon, had perfected a process for altering the nature of the gold used in the plant so that it became from 8 to 18% lighter and proportionately cheaper, in a given working mass. From a stated amount of 14-karat gold, for instance, 118 articles could be made by D’Avignon where another man could make but 100. The new gold was harder, more durable than the old; perspiration would not tarnish it, nor gases stain. There was romantic talk of how a secret similar to D’Avignon’s had been buried in the 16th Century with that garrulous, clever knave, Benvenuto Cellini, goldsmith of Flo-rence. There was practical talk of how U. S. manufacturers alone would be saved nine millions a year on their sixty-million-dollar gold bill if the process were put in general use.