Do you have a collection of gold and silver jewelries? Do you know how to identify a counterfeit from a real jewelry? Surely, gold and silver jewelries are lovely. They are considered by many as investments. They are not cheap. They can cost you hundreds and thousands of dollars apiece. With that said, knowing the authenticity of silver or gold jewelry is very crucial. If you don't want your lifetime savings gone to waste because of fake jewelries here are some tips.
Using A Piece Of Glass
When doing this activity, select a section that will be less observable in case this experiment leaves a permanent mark. In this test, you need to prepare a piece of glass and your gold item for analysis. Using the piece of glass, scratch it against your gold item. If you discover scratches after your scraped the metal, it is conclusive to say that the item is not pure gold and if there's gold content, it is quite low.
Check The Purity By Inspecting The Karat Grade
If you gold piece is too small to inspect, use a magnifying glass for better examination. Check the item for the gold purity. Most gold items have their karat grade imprinted on them. A 24 karat gold ring will have a marking of 24K. The other possible karat grades are 18 karat, 14 karat, 12 karat or 10 karat gold. Usually the mark is very small and it will be next to impossible to see. Again, for better viewing use a magnifying glass.
Inspect The Pendant
If you are examining your silver pendant, look carefully at marking. If you see a.925 or S.S. it means that your pendant is made of sterling silver. Then again, if you see the S.P. mark, it means that pendant is silver plated and not sterling silver.
Using An Acid Test
For jewelry buyers the acid test may not be the right testing for you to check if the items you intend to buy are authentic as most jewelry retailers will not allow you to drop any acid tests on their jewelries. However, if you have jewelries at home and you are curious if the items you have are genuine, you can choose to do this experiment. First is to prepare your gold piece and a testing stone. When scratching the test stone just use a drop of test acid on the streak of metal. Examine if there are any changes in color. If testing gold, the streak must change slightly. If you have used a14k gold acid and you did not test it on a 14k gold item, expect it to fade away, demonstrating that the item is less than 14K. If the color did not change at all, it signifies that you are testing on a gold piece higher than14K. However, if you are testing on a silver piece, use this guideline. The streak or band should change in dark red color if the item is 925 Silver. The streak should change to brown if 800 silver and green if 500 silver.
Find a magnet at home and hold it near your gold jewelry. If the magnet attracts to your gold ring or earrings, there are other alloys or metals mixed in with the material. Remember that gold in itself is non-magnetic and pure gold is very soft that is why during manufacturing of gold jewelries other metals or alloys are included to make the jewelry sturdy and heavy wearing.
Checking your jewelry for its purity and genuineness doesn't require expertise in smithing or jewelry production. Follow the tips above if you want to check the authenticity of your pieces. So that next time you buy a piece of jewelry, you will not just be ensnared by the beauty but also the authenticity of the jewelry.
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