Dutch metal

British  

noun

1. a substitute for gold leaf, consisting of thin sheets of copper that have been turned yellow by exposure to the fumes of molten zinc

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Example Sentences

The watches are worthless, the diamonds and other jewels are paste, and the gold is pinchbeck or Dutch metal.

From The Secrets of the Great City by McCabe, James Dabney

Articles of plaster and wood may be bronzed by coating them with size and then covering them with a bronze powder, such as Dutch metal, beaten into fine leaves and powdered.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" by Various

These should be made of aluminum leaf, or of Dutch metal.

From How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus Containing Complete Directions for Making All Kinds of Simple Apparatus for the Study of Elementary Electricity by St. John, Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew)

The painters of old, when they portrayed sainted personages, were fain to have recourse to compasses and gold leaf—as if celestial splendour could be represented by Dutch metal!

From The Newcomes Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family by Thackeray, William Makepeace

The so-called gilding is really Dutch metal or copper, and the silver is tin or zinc, so that the two actually form a voltaic couple.

From The Seven Follies of Science [2nd ed.] A popular account of the most famous scientific impossibilities and the attempts which have been made to solve them. by Phin, John