I came across this photo for a South Bend 212 16 size in a 25 year gold filled case currently on Ebay. It includes the original case paper back insert with what I thought to be interesting information.

The paper states that the case backs are made to a thickness of 21/thousands of an inch. It also states that 22% or 4.60/thousands of an inch is solid gold. I converted this figure to mm and came up with:

25.4 MM in a standard inch

.0254 MM is 1/thousand of an inch

.5334 MM = 21/thousands of an inch

.117348 MM = 22% of the 21/thousands of an inch

So there is a little more than 1/tenth of a "MM" of gold on the outside of the case back for a 25 year gold filled case. It is safe to assume then that a 20 yr case would have less, and that the South Bend 30 year or Permanant would have a little more.

I believe this displays well why Lindell has always suggested caution to power buffing a case. Light hand motion with soft cotton cloth is best I'm sure. What do the others think?

John