Gold Plating
Because gold is so valuable, many people wonder whether the gold plating on Franklin Mint medals contains a significant amount of gold that would make them more valuable. The answer is no, because the gold plating is so extremely thin that there is a negligible amount of actual gold in the "24kt gold electroplate". Most gold plating is about 10-20 microns thick (1 micron = .001 millimeter). For comparison, a dollar bill is about 200 microns thick, so we're talking less than 1/10 the thickness of a dollar bill! The gold-plated silver medals look great, but the value is the same as the silver value.