The aim of this work is to characterize the corrosion resistance of bronze used as an intermediate layer, underneath gold plate, and also that of an intermediate layer of palladium on bronze to improve the corrosion resistance of the system substrate-intermediate layer-thin gold layer. The corrosion resistance was characterized by electrochemical techniques, mainly, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and potentiodynamic polarization tests. The surface after immersion and electrochemical tests was observed by scanning electron microscopy. The results of this work showed that the addition of an intermediate layer of palladium between bronze and gold layers showed that the resistances related to the specimens with palladium undercoat, either related to the coating-electrolyte interface (R2) or to the substrate exposed to the electrolyte underneath the coating defects (R3) were twice as that of bronze as the gold undercoat. Besides, the palladium undercoat to gold finish increased the resistance to tarnishing comparatively to the bronze undercoat. Tarnishing is a common problem associated to bronze corrosion. The introduction of palladium as an intermediate layer avoided the breakdown of passivity that occurred for the bronze gold coated material at potentials around 0.5 V-Ag/Ag/Cl(3M). (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.