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 SMP Silver Salon Forums
 Silver Jewelry
 Gold Testing
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| Author | Topic: Gold Testing |
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Paul Lemieux Posts: 1792 |
posted 04-15-2011 10:36 AM
  
ok, i have an embarrassingly amateur question to ask. i rarely buy gold items, let alone unmarked ones, and for years i have relied on an easy electronic gold testing kit that simply lights up to indicate the item's purity. however the device finally broke and now i have a touchstone & various bottles of testing acid. my question is: after i rub a discreet corner of the item on the touchstone & drop the acid onto the resultant deposit, how long must the deposit remain undissolved to indicate the item is gold? for example, i recently tested a ring. the 14k acid dissolved the deposit immediately. the 10k acid only dissolved it at length--it took several, perhaps 10 or more, seconds for it to start dissolving. does this mean it is 10k (and that any acid will dissolve even real gold if left long enough)? slightly under 10k? or still not gold? i strongly suspect the ring is gold from the look/feel of the metal and also it is set with precious gems, but i'm not quite sure how to interpret the test results. thanks for any tips! IP: Logged |
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Scott Martin Forum Master Posts: 11520 |
posted 04-15-2011 12:19 PM
Everything you need to know about touchstone testing is in The Guide to Evaluating Gold & Silver Objects. IP: Logged |
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Paul Lemieux Posts: 1792 |
posted 04-16-2011 11:12 AM
Great. I see that the NYPL has 2 copies available for viewing, so I will have a look there. IP: Logged |
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Marc Posts: 414 |
posted 04-17-2011 12:41 AM
Hi Paul, I tried using an electronic test kit and was consistantly getting a 12k reading no matter what the real quality was, so I went back to acid testing. Far better. I have used Scott's booklet on gold testing and it has served me well. Marc IP: Logged |
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