Question: What was the thickness of each gold plate?

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Question: What was the thickness of each gold plate?

Each plate was as thick as thick paper, parchment or tin

  • "of the thickness of tin" - Oliver Cowdery [1]
  • "of the thickness of plates of tin"[2] —Martin Harris
  • "thin leaves of gold"[3] - Martin Harris
  • "about as thick as parchment"[4] — David Whitmer
  • "[We] could raise the leaves this way (raising a few leaves of the Bible before him)."[5] — William Smith
  • "They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metalic [sic] sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book."[6] — Emma Smith
  • "each as thick as a pane of glass" - Critical newspaper[7]
  • "the plates themselves were about as thick as window glass, or common tin" - Critical newspaper [8]
  • "thickness of tin plates" - Citing David Whitmer [9]
  • "being about the thickness of common tin" - Parley P. Pratt [10]
  • "as thick as common tin" - [11]


Notes

  1. A.S., “The Golden Bible, or, Campbellism Improved,” Observer and Telegraph. Religious, Political, and Literary, Hudson, Ohio (18 November 1830): 3, quoting Cowdery. off-site
  2. Martin Harris interview, Tiffany's Monthly, May 1859, 165.
  3. Martin Harris interview, Iowa State Register, August 1870, as quoted in Backman, Eyewitness Accounts, 226.
  4. Martin Harris interview, Iowa State Register, August 1870, as quoted in Backman, Eyewitness Accounts, 226.
  5. William Smith, The Saints' Herald, 4 October 1884, 644.
  6. Emma Smith interview, The Saints' Herald, 1 October 1879.
  7. “Mormonism,” Fredonia Censor (New York) (7 March 1832). Reprinted from the Franklin Democrat (Pennsylvania) circa March 1832. off-site
  8. “The Orators of Mormon,” Catholic Telegraph (Cincinnati, Ohio) 1 (14 April 1832): 204–5. Reprinted from Mercer Press (Pennsylvania), circa April 1832. off-site
  9. ED Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 15; attributed to David Whitmer off-site
  10. Parley P. Pratt, "Discovery of an Ancient Record in America," Millennial Star 1 no. 2 (June 1840), 30–37. off-site
  11. W. I. Appleby, A Dissertation of Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream... (Philadelphia: Brown, Bicking & Guilbert, 1844), 1–24. Full title