Ormolu

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Joe Gwinn

It's possible some individuals occasionally use the original process, but for well over a century it hasn't been used commercially. According to the "Health Risks" section of , "No true ormolu was produced in France after around 1830 because legislation had outlawed the use of mercury. Therefore, other techniques were used instead but nothing surpasses the original mercury-firing ormolu method for sheer beauty and richness of colour. Electroplating is the most common modern technique."

Which leaves me wondering about other countries.

Mercury was used, in the U.S., in gold recovery during the California Gold Rush, and certainly up to the 1960's and probably later. The gold and mercury formed an amalgam and the mercury was later driven off by heating. Instructions dating from the early gold rush days clearly stated the dangers of mercury and one of the methods used was to trap the vapors in a potato.

See

Gold mining/recovery is still done using mercury in indonesia (& africa?). I recall seeing video where "native" workers looked like tin men with silver skin.

I found it vaguely amusing that someone would spam this news article about it with an advert for cheap mercury! Only in Indonesia!