"I have lately guilt in a complete manner two large silver medals, by bringing them into communication by means of a steel wire, with a negative pole of a voltaic bile, and keeping them one after the other immersed in ammoniuret of gold newly made and well saturated." (www.caswellplating.com)
This would've made an interesting article, unfortunatly, the leading scientific body in Europe, the French Academy of Sciences didn't approve of his work, so they stopped all publishment of his journals. But he is still known as the creater of metal plating.
In later years, such as 1839, in Britain and Russia, scientists have used Brunatelli's knowlege to turn copper into a platable metal. Also during this time in Britain and Russia, electroplating was invented. Two interesting fellows from Britain named George and Henry Elkington started experimenting with metal plating. They refined Brugnatelli's ideas and worked with John Wright to create formula's for potassium cyanide plating baths. With these baths, one would put any ordinary metal inside, leave it untill the reaction has finished, and then when they take it out, there will be a nice covering over the original metal.
Soon, metal plating was a booming success. Everyone wanted something plated because the whole idea was so new! But nowadays, metal plating may not seem as exciting as back then in the good ol' days. But mark my words, your world would never be the same if there were no metalplatings!! Pace.