How to distinguish costume jewelry from jewelry?
Choosing and purchasing jewelry is a pleasant experience. Magnificent creations of jewelry give a feeling of beauty and lift your spirits. But purchasing jewelry requires significant financial costs. And this requires a serious and responsible approach. 
To buy genuine jewelry, you should carefully choose a jewelry seller. Today, the sale of jewelry is carried out both by specialized stores and pawn shops, and by “sellers” behind the counter on the embankment of the nearest resort. The difference will be in the price of the product and the risk of purchasing a low-quality product. Large chain jewelry stores and official representative offices and distributors of jewelry factories value their reputation and carefully monitor the quality of the products they offer. However, the cost of products from such sellers may be higher than the market price. Guaranteeing the authenticity of the product is also highly valued. The price of used jewelry is much more attractive than the cost of new items. However, you should not buy such jewelry “from hand”. Pawn shops sell used jewelry. Before purchasing an item, pawn shop appraisers carefully check its authenticity. For these purposes, pawnshops use special equipment and chemical solutions, with the help of which the alloy composition of the product and its sample are determined. To sell jewelry, contact the Emporium Gold salon. Within 5 minutes, an expert appraiser will offer a favorable ransom amount. Since 2011, our salon has been purchasing jewelry and checking its authenticity in detail, guaranteeing the quality of the products for further sale. 
Be careful when buying jewelry in the market Sellers at resorts offer prices below market prices to holidaymakers. When going on vacation abroad, you should not give in to the temptation to buy jewelry at low prices on trays, shops, markets and non-specialized stores. Sellers in such places often offer fakes to carefree vacationers. A large number of low-quality jewelry is found in Turkey, China, Israel and the UAE. In addition, at the resorts of our country, scammers pass off cheap fakes as original jewelry. The joy from the low price of such jewelry will soon be replaced by grief from the change in its appearance. Darkening, staining and chipping of the gold plating are the most common flaws in such items. A high-quality piece of jewelry cannot be inexpensive, but jewelry made from base metals, at best with gold, is quite affordable. There are a number of popular ways to check jewelry for authenticity. For example, the reaction of a product to contact with vinegar or iodine. Or, checking the interaction of jewelry with a magnet. And also, determining the color of the mark after rubbing with decoration on paper or unglazed ceramic dishes. All these methods do not provide even a 50% guarantee that the product is made of the metal stated on the label. Modern technologies make it possible to produce such exquisite counterfeits that even expert jewelers will need to make significant efforts to accurately determine the authenticity of a piece of jewelry. 
Check the name stamp and hallmarks All genuine jewelry is marked with a name and hallmark. The stamp of the name indicates the year of manufacture of the product and the manufacturer, the stamp of the sample indicates the type of precious metal and its quantity in the product. The mark on the product must be clear and even. Having decided to invest money in jewelry, you need to be patient and calmly and thoroughly implement your plan. The time spent will be repaid by the pleasure of wearing a beautiful piece of jewelry made from quality materials. The Emporium Gold salon offers to buy original jewelry from famous brands at a competitive price. We will deliver purchased orders throughout Russia free of charge. About 30% of jewelry sold in Russia is fake. They are counterfeited in different ways: they pass off silver items as white gold; they make tests that do not correspond to reality; decorated with fake stones. So how can you avoid becoming a victim of deception? AdMe.ru I have compiled a list of the simplest methods that will help you check whether a particular piece of jewelry is a fake. With their help, you can check the jewelry you have at home, and some of them can even be used in a store.
Metals
Sample and stamp
The easiest way to check is, of course, to look at the hallmark and stamp. Information about which mark is on which metal can be easily found in the public domain on the Internet, and then all that remains is to compare this data with what is applied to the product. The numbers must be clear and easy to read, otherwise it is better not to take risks and refuse to purchase such jewelry. To determine by sample how much precious metal is in a product, mentally place a comma after the second digit, and the resulting number will indicate the percentage of its content. For example, 925 silver is 92,5% pure metal.
- Gold purity – 375, 500, 583, 585, 750, 916, 958, 999
- Silver samples – 800, 830, 875, 925, 960, 999
- Platinum samples – 850, 900, 950, 999
Magnet
Plating steel or other high-iron alloy with gold or its imitation is a common procedure in jewelry making. A genuine product with a high content of precious metal should not be magnetic. Therefore, when going to a jewelry store, you can safely arm yourself with a magnet.
Damage
Silver and platinum are very similar in appearance, so expensive metal can be easily replaced with cheap one. Such a fake made of silver will give itself away as a black tint and plasticity: platinum does not have such characteristics.
Gold on unfired ceramic tiles or porcelain that is not glazed will leave gold marks, but counterfeit marks will appear gray or black. If you decide to check the product this way, do it in an inconspicuous place, such as a clasp.
Application of compounds
Chalk
Another one of the simplest methods is a chalk test. Rub the silver jewelry with regular chalk, and if it starts to darken, then you have real silver.
Iodine
Gold can be tested using iodine. If after the test a stain remains on the jewelry, then this is a sign of a fake or an alloy that contains a large amount of base metals.
A drop of iodine applied to the surface of a platinum product will remain dark, and the more saturated its shade, the higher the standard of the jewelry.
Vinegar
Fake gold items darken very quickly in vinegar, so to check the authenticity of the jewelry, just pour a little liquid into a glass and hold the item in it for about 5 minutes.
Sulfuric ointment
Silver can be tested with sulfur ointment. If the item is made of real silver, then a dark blue stain will remain in the place where you applied the ointment. It can be easily cleaned later.
Ammonia
When interacting with most metals, ammonia causes their surface to blacken. This does not happen when interacting with platinum.
Stones
Diamond
Natural stone should not fog up if you breathe on it, as it has high thermal conductivity.
Emerald
To determine authenticity, you need to examine the structure of the stone under a magnifying glass: a real emerald does not have tubular or spiral patterns. Also, real emerald does not conduct heat well – it always remains cold to the touch.
Pearl
Natural pearls are expensive, so you shouldn’t hope that a product at a low price will be real. To establish the authenticity of a pearl, it is enough to test it “by tooth.” When you try to bite a pearl, you can feel it squeaking on your teeth like sand. Artificial pearls do not have such properties.
Amber
Place the amber in a glass of salted water (3 teaspoons of salt will be enough). A glass or plastic product, as well as “amber” made of epoxy resin, will immediately sink. But real amber will float: its specific gravity is less than the weight of salt water.
You can also rub the amber with a woolen cloth – it will “shock” with electricity and attract threads and dust.
Do you know any other simple ways to check jewelry for authenticity?
Preview photo Star61 / Wikimedia
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Comments
So, before going to the jewelry store, we take with us:
magnet, ceramic tiles, chalk, iodine, vinegar, sulfur ointment and ammonia.
Question for the experts: how many minutes will it take for the store clerks to call an ambulance?
Of all this, in practice, in order not to run into a call from the police, you can only try: look at the stamp and sample, touch, breathe and maybe a magnet. Everything else is fraught with consequences.
It is better not to bite the pearls, but to look at their appearance and hold them in your hand. Good natural pearls are ALWAYS very heavy. Pearls have many layers of nacre – hence their weight. What we have in our stores are farm-grown pearls. The mollusk “winds” layers of mother-of-pearl onto a plastic bead. Not farm-grown, but wild-caught pearls are very expensive and, according to one article, “affordable only to sheikhs.” This situation with pearls is due to water pollution. Also, pearls are a little cloudy compared to artificial ones. There are different degrees of haze. Pearls can also have irregular shapes. You can google it on the Internet for more details so as not to make a bad purchase.
Patented verification method! Find out if pearls are natural?
Take a glass of vinegar and throw your pearl into it.
If the pearl DISSOLVED, then it was REAL!
Cheers! Use it.
I present. A man comes into the store, asks for pearl beads and. Bites them! Interested in the seller’s reaction?
I’m wondering, does the author of this article even know that iodine on real gold LEAVES a dark stain that cannot be easily wiped off with a cloth later? Otherwise, apparently, they simply copied and pasted what was included in the article without even checking it, and you have better faith.
