How to check jewelry or gold?

Counterfeiting of precious metals is a common phenomenon. Even if you purchased the earrings personally, you inherited them, no one guarantees that the jewelry is made of gold. What should I do? Learn to recognize a fake using available tools. We invite you to get acquainted with the most popular methods of verifying the authenticity of a gold product.

How do they check gold in a pawnshop?

Professionals approach the issue of determining the chemical composition of earrings in a comprehensive manner. Through a visual inspection of the jewelry, they determine the presence/absence of a sample. The contact method using touchstone (for products up to 5 grams) or nitric acid allows them to establish the authenticity of the product. The hydrostatic weighing method makes it possible to determine the purity of the alloy. The result of checking jewelry using a spectrometer is the preparation of a report, which indicates the percentage composition of all metals included in them.

How to distinguish gold from fake at home?

Let’s make a reservation right away: 100% accuracy of the result can only be achieved by contacting a jeweler. However, in this case, you need to be prepared for large expenses – for conducting an independent examination, jewelry workshops charge as much as the object of research sometimes costs. For anyone who does not intend to throw money away, we recommend that you determine whether there is gold in front of them or not, using one of the methods presented below. For your information:: imitation precious metals can be tungsten, pyrite, copper or tombac (an alloy containing 90% copper and 10% zinc).

Testing gold with iodine

first, a small scratch is made on the inside of the earring;
then a small amount of iodine is applied to it;
after (after 3 – 4 minutes) the color of the applied liquid is assessed.

If the iodine turns white and begins to evaporate, the gold product is a fake. If it forms a dark-colored spot at the point of contact with the jewelry, then the jewelry is made of gold.

Important: to ensure that traces from the test do not remain on the earrings forever, you need to remove them immediately after its completion. This can be done with medical alcohol or a solution consisting of soap and hydrogen peroxide. Afterwards, the product should be rinsed with running water and wiped dry.

Testing gold with vinegar

To carry it out, you need to take a small amount of table vinegar (as much as is needed to completely immerse the decoration in the liquid) and pour it into a glass or ceramic container. Afterwards, put in it a gold item that raises doubts. After 5 – 7 minutes, the test result will be known. If it is passed successfully, the earrings will not change their color. If not, the metal will become dark and lose the aesthetics of its appearance.

Testing gold with lapis pencil

Purchasing an antiseptic preparation for external use is not difficult. It is sold in any pharmacies and does not require large expenses (150 rubles will be enough). To check earrings with it you need:

wet the jewelry;
draw over it with a lapis pencil;
wipe the product with a dry cloth.

There will be no traces left on the precious metal. Costume jewelry/low-grade gold, when reacting with silver nitrate, will darken and acquire other shades of color.

Testing gold with a magnet

All noble metals, including gold, are diamagnetic. They will not be attracted by a magnet, even if located at a short distance from a body with a magnetic field.

For reference: only imitation precious metals, alloys, surrogate coated with gold are magnetic. Exceptions are aluminum, copper, tin, bronze.

Testing gold with nitric acid

To perform this test you will need a deep metal bowl, a pipette and acid (HNO3). For safety reasons, it is recommended to carry out testing using personal protective equipment – disposable gloves will be sufficient. What do we have to do? Necessary:

put the earrings in the bowl;
draw acid into a pipette;
drop 1 drop of the reagent onto the gold product.

After 2 – 3 minutes the fake will turn green. A precious metal with a high alloy content will acquire a milky tint as a result of a chemical reaction with acid. Gold will not undergo any changes.

Testing gold with black bread

Having bought rye bread, carefully cut the loaf and remove the crumb from it. Mix the crumb with a small amount of water until smooth. Place the jewelry in the resulting mixture, stick it on all sides and leave it like that until it dries completely.

Important: if after removing the product there are no traces left in the bread, it is genuine. If dark spots are noticeable on the crust, this is a fake that has undergone a metal oxidation reaction.

Testing gold with ceramics

It is easy to determine whether a piece of jewelry is in front of you or not by running it across the unglazed surface of the ceramic piece. Jewelry made from cheap materials will leave black or gray streaks on the ceramic. Solar metal – a light line of a golden hue.

For reference: after such exposure, scratches and abrasions will appear on the earrings. This is especially true for softer, higher grades of precious metal.

Testing gold using the Archimedes method

To determine the sample of the material of manufacture, you need to prepare a glass of water, thread, scales, a piece of paper and a pen. Next, you should adhere to the following algorithm of actions:

weigh the jewelry and write down its weight (m1) on a piece of paper;
place a container of water on the scales and reset the data to zero;
immerse the gold item in the container so that it does not touch the bottom and walls of the glass;
weigh the jewelry and write down its weight (m2) again on a piece of paper;
make calculations using the formula p=m1/m2 (where p is the alloy density coefficient).

All that remains to be done is to compare the result with the table data.

The value of the obtained coefficient

Gold is one of the most valuable jewelry metals. Modern production produces this metal in different colors and with various impurities.

Gold-hued jewelry is not always what it seems. Today, popular alloys that imitate gold are:

Gypsy gold – ordinary copper, polished to a dazzling shine
Tompak – an alloy of copper, zinc and tin
Aluminum bronze is an alloy of aluminum itself, copper and some alloying elements
Butt bronze is an alloy of tin and copper, most often used as gilding.

Buying gold jewelry

The first thing you need to pay attention to when purchasing is the place where gold jewelry is sold. Of course, in dubious places – in markets, parking lots, in passages, stalls and pawn shops – there is a high chance of purchasing worthless metal at an indecently high cost. Yes, in jewelry stores and boutiques there is also a chance to purchase fake gold, but it is much less. After purchasing jewelry, you need to keep receipts and tags.

The second important factor in choosing jewelry is its cost. The price of the product cannot be cheaper than the cost of a similar weight of precious metal. A ring offered below cost will definitely turn out to be fake. Of course, everything depends on the seller’s marketing activity. In our online store, for example, you can often see attractive discounts of up to 50%.

And finally, the most important thing when buying jewelry is testing. Fineness is the number of grams of pure metal in an alloy. That is, the higher the standard, the higher the quality of the material from which the jewelry is made. Factory products always have a standard stamp. According to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated May 6, 2016 No. 394, all alloys in which more than 30% of the weight is precious metal must have a manufacturer’s mark with the specified purity. Standard samples for gold are 375 (lowest), 500, 583, 585, 750, 916, 958, 999 (highest – only 1 g of impurities per 1 kg of metal).
It is not easy to examine the sample. However, this is extremely important to do at the time of purchase, since the brand should not have a vague appearance, be crooked and difficult to read. You can use a regular magnifying glass or a smartphone in macro mode.

Checking gold jewelry at home

We have already found out what you need to know before purchasing jewelry in the previous section. How else can you check the jewelry if it is already in your box at home?

Consider the joints

When soldering gold items with links, such as chains or bracelets, use low-melting solder of a higher standard. This causes a difference in the color of the joints and the metal of the link itself. Thus, if you see this difference in color, then the chance that this product will be made of real gold increases. Although you cannot be 100% sure of this, you need to check in other ways.

Use a magnet

A fairly common practice is to make “gold” products from steel or another cheaper alloy with a high iron content, and then plate this product with gold. Here you need to remember – not a single precious metal is magnetic! If the jewelry sticks to a magnet, then it is either an outright fake made of ferromagnets – iron, nickel, cobalt, etc., or a very low-quality gold alloy, with a high content of iron and its impurities. However, if the product does not stick to the magnet, this is also not a reason to call it high quality. Let’s check further.

Vinegar or iodine test

A rather dubious method of quality control, but it also has its place. Doubtful because one might encounter some new gold alloy that might react to these reagents. This way you can ruin the product and form a wrong opinion about it.
It is recommended to perform an iodine test on an inconspicuous area of jewelry, preferably on the inside if it is a gold ring, earrings, pendant or bracelet. Use a sharp object to make a small scratch and, using a cotton swab, apply a little iodine. The fake product will change color, but the real one will remain shiny.
With vinegar essence or vinegar solution, everything is the same – when immersed in acid, the jewelry oxidizes and changes color, but real gold remains as it was. Be extremely careful if you have jewelry with inserts of stones, especially pearls – it may simply dissolve in vinegar.

lapis pencil

This is an antiseptic based on silver nitrate. Sold in pharmacies for healing microcracks and small wounds. To check the decoration, you need to moisten it in water and draw a small line with a lapis pencil, immediately erasing it. There will be no trace left on real gold, but with other alloys the antiseptic will react and leave a dark stain. This testing method is considered the safest of all chemical tests, and is also suitable for testing silver.

Physical effects on jewelry

No, under no circumstances should you bite the gold! Although this is a rather soft metal, especially of high standard, aluminum, for example, can be just as soft. Therefore, the “tooth test” is not considered effective.
We suggest conducting a sound test. If gold is thrown onto a flat, hard surface or into a glass goblet, it will produce a bright, ringing, “crystal” sound. Unfortunately, this method is not suitable for chains, bracelets and other composite jewelry, but a woman’s gold ring can be tested.
There is testing of gold jewelry on ceramics. To do this, you need to forcefully drag the object across an uncoated ceramic surface. Fake leaves a black mark, while real gold leaves a golden mark. However, in this way you can ruin the appearance of the product if you fail to carry out this test from the inside out.
You can also carefully make a cut with a needle file to determine the presence of gilding. Also, on the wrong side of the product, one or two movements with force are enough to erase the surface layer. If the color of the surface and deep layers is different, then this is a gold-plated piece of jewelry.
You can also carefully examine the metal in the sun and in the shade. Real gold will shine the same in any light.
Also, experts advise smelling the jewelry – real high-grade gold will not have a characteristic metallic smell.

If, after the procedures, you still doubt the quality of the jewelry, our company’s specialists are always ready to help you determine the quality of the jewelry. We are waiting for you in our showrooms and on the pages of our online catalogue.