Hi Michael,
I got out my N1874. On one side it has a gold hot stamp....but around the edges of some of the letters you can see a little of the mustard color. The other side of my chip has a lot of the mustard color with very little of the metallic gold left...it looks like the mustard was under the gold, and the gold wore off. Funny thing, the chip shows very little wear (easily stands on edge) ...except the hot stamp on one side!!!?

Weird...I just looked at it again, at a different angle. Holding it at an angle, it almost looks like the hot stamp it silver??!! Is it possible that they used silver foil, with a mustard color under it so it looked gold??! Probably not, it's probably just that the hot stamp is worn....but it IS odd looking!