Hi, this is Angelo at Arden Jewelers, and
today we're going to be seeing if any of the at-home gold tests I've seen online actually
work. Remember, if you're ever working with acids or chemicals to properly ventilate the
area and wear the right protective equipment. The first and most important step is visual
inspection. This is actually the same thing that I do at the store and what I'm looking for
is: did the jeweler that originally made the piece put a stamp on it telling me how they made it or
what metal they made it out of? Let's get started with the ring, and I like to use a 10 power
loupe or magnifying glass or you can even use your smartphone and crank up the magnification.
Trying to find the stamp does take a little time. On rings it's normally on the inside. This one is
stamped 14k which means it could be made out of 14 karat real gold or it could be a fake that someone
stamped 14k, so we'll do more testing on this. Next is this bracelet. I normally look for stamps
around the hinge or the clasp part of a bracelet. This one says 1/20th 12K GF. A quick cheat code:
if you ever see a fraction, it's fake. You're done; don't even worry about it. But, this keeps
going and tells us that it's 12K GF and the GF stands for Gold Filled which means it's got a tiny
tiny tiny amount of gold on top of a base metal. And the next thing we'll look for if there
wasn't a stamp is: is that gold peeling off? So, I look where it might have been bumped like on the
edges or on the bottom (did it get scraped?) and as I'm looking at this you can actually see the
gold filling like peeling off from the base metal underneath. As soon as you see that you know it's
fake also which is really cool. Last thing is: is it steel that's been gold plated? That's what
I'm thinking, and that's what I'm trying to figure out. A lot of times you'll see yellow but then
there'll be random white colors. So, I'm trying to figure out: did someone take a steel piece
and plate it gold? And if I see that, I'm really concerned that it's not real. Alright that's about
as far as we can go with visual inspection. The next step is a magnet. A ton of fakes that are
on the market today are magnetic, and the way they're made is they use steel and then they put
a plating over the top of them. So, a super quick test you can do is get a really strong magnet (I
like to use rare earth magnets) and stack them up and as you'll just touch each item. These have
not picked up yet...oh but it got that chain, got this bird cage thing, got that basket, barely
got that. Do you see how it's like almost picking it up? Any magnetic at all is fake you're done
so easy to tell. That doesn't mean you've caught every fake. There are fakes that are not magnetic,
but if it's magnetic, it's not gold. The only thing to remember with a magnet is: all clasps
generally have a steel spring that makes the clasp movement work. So, don't put the magnet
on the clasp portion of a chain because you'll get it picking it up and you'll think it's fake
when actually it's a real gold chain with just a steel spring in the clasp. So, skip the clasp, run
the magnet on the chain, and you're good to go. Now we're going to move on to some of
the more destructive tests we found. First, is using household bleach. This
can be detergent or any normal bleach, and the way it works is you need to first take
a file and scratch the item you want to test... that's about enough. And some of these
videos say you just like tap into the bleach, and it'll react right away. We did not find that
to be the case. If you leave it in here for 15 to 30 minutes, then it should be reacting if
it's fake and if it's not fake you won't see a reaction. A big point of caution: if you were
to leave a real gold ring in here overnight, the bleach will actually start eating the alloys
in that gold ring and will start damaging it even though it's real. So, be careful. Okay, it's
been about 30 minutes let's see how it did. I don't see any reaction to the scratch. This
is a good indication that this is a real gold ring. Next up is this bird cage. We're gonna give
it enough of a file to get through any plating. I've been filing gold for years, and
right away this does not feel normal. I don't know how to quantify that though.
Let's see what the bleach does to it. As you can see we are getting a lot
of reaction from this bird cage. It almost looks like it's getting
eaten a little bit by the bleach. We can conclusively say at this
point that this is not gold. The next at-home test we want to
try involves liquid foundation. Put a little on your hand, spread it
out...it's important to wait until it's dry. Okay once it's dry you take
your piece you want to test I can see it's making it a little darker.
Interesting. Let's try another one and this one's not changing at all.
This could actually work pretty good. The next test we saw online
is the lemon juice test. Similar to the other tests
you scratch the item first. I'm going to do the real gold ring and
this suspected fake piece, and then get some lemon juice, and
you're looking for a reaction Maybe it's doing a tiny bit of something? This is not very clear. I'm thinking possibly if
we submerged it in lemon juice for a long time, we could get a reaction. But,
the videos say just use a lemon. No, yeah, I'm not impressed on this one. This next test uses distilled white vinegar. Like
the other tests, put a small scratch in the item and drop it in the vinegar, and you're looking
for any sort of reaction that you can get. Okay, we've left them in
the vinegar for 30 minutes, and I still don't see any
reaction on these test pieces. This one doesn't seem to work for us either. The next test we found uses baking soda. First, you mix it with some water, and you're
trying to get it to look like syrup consistency. Then, get some and put it on the item. Let it sit for a minute, and then rub it off, and
you're looking for any reaction. And, I see none. No discoloration or reaction on either piece. This
one doesn't seem to be working very well either. The next test we found to
use at home uses toothpaste. Just take the toothpaste, put it on the item, see if it discolors it, and then when you wipe it off it's
supposed to have discolored the item. Let's see if I get any reaction at all. No reaction. That would have been so cool if that
one worked. This does not appear to work either. So, if the tests you've tried at
home have not worked very well, you can actually take your at-home
gold testing to the next level with a touchstone acid kit. And, you can get
these online, they're relatively cheap, and they work pretty well. It's similar to what
we use in the jewelry industry at the store. They are a little dangerous though. Do not ever
boil them. Leave the acids at room temperature. They're nitric acid, and if they touch your skin,
follow the directions to rinse it off immediately. You can use baking soda, but you don't want to
leave it on your skin; it's not good for you. Let's get started. I'll show you how this works,
and if you guys love this, I can make a much more in-depth video about it, but you gotta let me
know in the comments. First, this is a 14 karat gold band and you do vertical scratch about an
eighth of an inch wide. And, I'm going to take a piece of suspected fake jewelry right next to it
a little ways away. You gotta press fairly hard, so I'd say it's mildly destructive. And, then
you start putting the acid in ascending order. So, in the interest of time I'll put a drop
of 14...14 and then... So, already I can tell the 14 karat is eating the fake gold item, but
the 14k acid is not eating the 14K gold ring. And then I put the 18K acid and right there
it's already eating it, so that tells me that this ring is 14 karat gold and this costume piece
is fake. The next piece of equipment you can use at home is the electronic gold tester. This
is actually my favorite, and I use it in the store almost every day. It's not perfect, but it
works really well. Let me show you how it works. First, take an item, make a firm connection to
the silver disc, and then press the pen to it. What you're doing is you're making an electric
connection, and it's measuring the resistance. This one shows 14 karat on the gauge,
perfect. Let's try a fake. This is gold filled and right away it shows red. So, it's not real.
But, because it is gold filled, if you test it in the right spot it can show that it's gold. So,
pretty tricky, but you gotta know how to use it, but it works great. So, there you have it: some
great and not so great tests you can do at home. Be safe and let us know in the comments which ones
have worked best for you. And, if none of these are working, and you really want to know if your
gold jewelry is real or not, we at Arden Jewelers would love to help. Feel free to reach out
anytime. Thanks, and I'll see in the next video.
