I used to work at a gold platers, doing the plating. Wish i still did. When we were bored we'd plate whatever we could find. Our keys, lighters, all the tools. We probably had the only 24k plated claw hammer
I was thinking, but im not going to do this now, so ill let on.
In the motorbike world you can chrome plate plastic. They coat it in something that conducts then chrome it.
If its chromed, you could then gold plate on top.
Fancy the worlds only gold plated tuffs?