Test Acid Gold,3

Why Gold Test Kits Are Significant To Collectors

If ever you have bought a gold ring or a gold necklace and you are asking yourself if you have purchased an authentic item, then there is nothing you could do but get yourself a gold testing kit to find out if it is an authentic piece.  Often, jewelers and buyers are interested in a couple of things: if the gold piece carries a correct karat marking and if it is a genuine gold.  You could trust electronic testers, however a test kit that contains a touch stone, a magnifying lens, and an acid is cheaper.  Usually, you just need these three things however jewelry retailers may also make use of testing needles and magnets which come really handy.

All right, to start with you have to conduct a visual inspection on the object.  Inspect the pieces for signs of scratches and poor craftsmanship, but you should have gone through this at the store before you pay money for the product.  Nevertheless, it does not hurt you to give it a more careful check at home.  You should be looking for the karat mark which can be really tiny that you might need to have some kind of help from a magnifying glass.  You can buy a magnifying glass at a school supplies shop in case it doesn’t accompany the kit.  Some frugal purchasers just use the aged lenses from their cameras.  Nevertheless, the appropriate lens for this specific purpose is the loupe which is the one you see watchmakers are using.  You’ll find collapsible loupes as well.  Anyway, a loupe lets you see markings and details on the gold piece, such as its carat mark.

After seeing the karat marking, you are at this point ready for our next procedure and that is to check if this carat mark is right.  You should have the acids this time.  So, note that a gold test kit includes different acids and that’s simply because gold items come in different karats as well.  As you know, there are 10, 14, 18, and 24 karat gold and you don’t use a single test acid for all of these.  Rather, there’s a test acid intended for a 10-karat gold; there is another one just for a 14-karat gold; and so forth.  The acid is actually a good barometer of the type of gold you possess.

Going to the screening portion, what you need to do is actually wipe the top of the jewelry piece clean.  You may already know, the oil coming from your fingertips can affect the test a bit.  Fix the correct test acid for the kind of gold item you have.  Therefore, in case it is a 14-karat gold you are testing, use the 14-karat test acid.  Just put a tiny drop of acid on top of the metal.  In case it’s a real 14-karat gold, then there should be no reaction.  After this testing, softly wipe the top with a lint-free fabric.

You could likewise work with a touchstone for safer screening and you get it inside gold test kits. To use a touchstone, just stroke the supposedly 14-k gold piece on top until a streak appears.  Drip a small amount of the correct test acid on the streak mark.  In case there’s no effect, it’s an authentic 14-k gold item.

Season 3 Episode 3 – Acid Test Part 1