That would fit. Most metals are white (silvery) and rhodium, being a noble
metal, doesn't oxidize so it retains the base metal color.
I wonder if it's the anti-friction properties that were impaired by LA smog.
Even 1970s smog seems insufficiently potent to cause any changes to rhodium.
Or maybe the coating wasn't gas tight so the smog would corrode the underlying
base metal.
paul
> On Jun 12, 2017, at 1:53 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> that does seem to be the case. I never looked to see that rhodium plates
> silver white.
> http://www.foxfinejewelry.com/blog/article/rhodium-plating-or-dipping-your-yellow-gold-jewelry-into-white-gold-jewelry/
>
> On 6/12/17 10:43 AM, Paul Koning wrote:
> That seems odd because rhodium is a noble metal (a close relative of platinum
> and palladium); I wouldn't expect it to
> react with water. Or with much of anything short of aqua regia, for that
> matter. Perhaps the silvery stuff is the
> rhodium and the blue is gun blue, i.e., iron oxide?
>
