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It's probably just very expensive and doesn't survive cleaning them.

Gold is extremely ductile. As thus thin layers of it are pretty cheap.

Not surviving is probably more reasonable reason.

Gold leaf is actually very cheap since its so thin. I can't imagine something like this costing more than a dollar in gold.

The coating is just a few nanometers thin. Price wouldn't be the main issue there.

I can imagine the material used for lenses is also rather cheap, and yet somehow they end up costing undreds of euros each... I wonder why...

They weren't cheap before either