How to test gold for its purity. *And give it a value*

hello everyone dan her down her prospecting here welcome back to my channel and if you're new welcome I hope to earn your subscription today so you got yourself some gold and now we want to see how good that gold is maybe you found a nugget out prospecting maybe you bought some pay dirt and got some gold from it maybe you wrote metal detecting you found yourself a piece of gold of some sort and you want to see help hear how good how much it's worth well I'm gonna show you how to do that today hope you enjoy now before I get started if you watch this video all the way through throughout the video I am gonna be telling you how you can win yourself this gold nugget very beautiful gold nugget donated from Nuggets by Grant to give away during this video so stick with the video and you too could win this ten gram $500 gold nugget and of course it will be one of the pieces of gold that I test today to show you its purity speaking of testing there are many many different ways to test gold some big machines big expensive thirty thousand dollar machines that can do it all sorts of stuff down to the cheap method that you you yourself can do at home doing what's known as a scratch test you have a black tile of some sort a few different forms strengths of acid and you scratch the gold on it you put dots of the acid on and see which acid dissolves the gold very special acids that can dissolve gold and if you know which one can dissolve the gold you'll know what purity your gold is these gold testing kits can be bought on eBay or Amazon or of course I've got them for sale on my new website if you want to go off to my website acting calm in my store you can buy yourself the exact same kit I'm using today and they're cheap you can get these kits for about twenty to fifty dollars depending on what you want and anybody can do this at home there are some safety precautions you have to take into consideration this is a very strong acid in here so gloves will be important safety glasses will be important and you know you don't just don't want to get on your bare skin anywhere in your eyes that kind of stuff this stuff is nasty and I have all sorts of gold here that I'm going to test today you have a necklace that my son found metal detecting another chain found metal detecting a couple of rings we found metal detecting one I know is gold what I know is not a couple of nuggets from picker ttan clean a couple of pieces from smelting and of course the gold nugget from Nuggets by Grant now your first line of defense to find out whether you have gold or not is to look at it probably with a loupe something like this look at it really closely and I've got the camera really light up and close right now to see if you can see markings stamps that say what karat gold the piece of jewelry is here on this little pendant my son found metal detecting you can see right on the top loop there it says 10k so the chances are this is 10 karat gold that being said they do make counterfeit gold with counterfeit stamps so you can't always go by the stamp that's on it also on this chain on the clasp of the chain itself there's a little plate that says 10k so I'm pretty sure that the pendant and the chain here are both 10k 10 karat if you look really closely at this little ring we found metal detecting it says 10k on it as well 10 karat most likely 10 karat gold ring this little tiny ring we found no markings none this chain here the color of it if it's green not gold it's most likely brass and then with the placer gold you never know what you're getting because placer gold can be anywhere from about 50% gold up to about 95% gold it can be anywhere in that range depending on what the minerals of that occurrence hold with them placer gold often has silver copper and other metals mixed in with the gold at some percentage so where you gonna figure that out today it is time to test this gold ring which we think from its markings of 10 karat and we're going to do that by taking the ring itself and scratching it really hard on this black slate tile it's actually a piece of glass but anyhow it's going to leave a streak of gold and when it does we're going to put dots of acid on that streak of gold and see which one dissolves it so here we go one good line there we go it's all we need one good line of gold scratched onto that slate now we think it's 10 karat so we're gonna use the 10 karat solution the one that says 10 K on it and if this dissolves that line we know it actually wasn't 10 karat gold if the line stays behind we're good I'm also gonna put a dot of the 14 karat on to show you what it would look like if it dissolves away safety first of course glasses and gloves next and we will put a dot of 10 karat solution move it around on top of that scratched line if it wasn't 10 karat gold that line would be going away right now we're also gonna put some of the 14 karat on that scratch line just to show you the difference put some 14 karat on there and we can watch the difference between the 10 karat and the 14 karat acids dissolving the gold you can see here on the 14 karat dot the Gold Line is going away on the 10 karat why it's still there in good shape very visible so our markings on this ring were correct a 10 carat gold ring I'm going to take this ring which I'm fairly certain is just gold-plated because most the gold plating was washed away when I was in the sands and the surf we're gonna scratch one good line on here with it and then we're gonna take the 10 karat solution and put a dot on it and see what happens now you can see right away that scratched gold line disappeared under the 10 carat solution I don't even have to try the 14 18 22 any of those kind of things because the 10 karat dissolved it completely that ring right there is fake what else can we try let's try this pendant of my son's here we go it's supposed to be 10 karat oops nice good line we'll put the 10 karat solution on it we will also put the 14-karat solution on it and see what happens and again the ten karat the gold wine stays underneath the acid the 14 karat it's gone so again the markings on this one are correct they show it as 10 karat it is now I'm gonna clean off the stone right now to clean off these stones you start with just some water solution rubber gloves water solution the water will dilute the acid so it's not dangerous rub real hard and it should take the gold off the surface if the gold doesn't come off the surface with that you put some of the 22 karat acid on it and rub it around dissolve the gold and then wipe it and it'll come away but often you can just do it with a bit of you know elbow grease then because there is acid on that rag I just dip it back in the water and leave it sitting in the water there to dilute any acid so I don't accidentally touch that with bare skin later on now for chains I believe this one is fake it's brass but if you wrap it around something hard like a pen like this it gives you something good to hold on to to make yourself a really good scratch there we go we've got a nice scratch we actually got a double double scratch and I am going to use the 10 karat acid on it because I believe this one is fake and sure enough you can see it's dissolving away the streak the brass streak has dissolved away we know that is not gold well let's try some placer gold now and see how it works with this same process we'll start with a nice big nugget nice big nugget from and we'll give it a really good scratch there we go nice good scratch from a picker tin nugget then we're gonna try one of the first Pickers I ever found at picker Tim nice big picker from Pinkerton I get a nice good scratch with that partner for everyone and there we go that was tough but we got a good scratch with the Pinkerton picker and of course the nugget from Nuggets by grant this is what we're giving away now I told you throughout the video I would tell you how to win this nugget well it's gonna be two parts the first part is if you want to win this nugget you have to leave a comment below leave a comment in this video and hit that like button those are the first two things you need to win this nugget I'll tell you the last thing you need to do at the end of the video okay let's test the nugget the big big nugget okay now take this little corner here I'm gonna give a really good scratch wash hard oh yeah nice good scratch now I should mention if you're worried about gold plated items whether it be jewelry or nuggets that maybe you bought in you're worried that just gold plated you have to get through that surface before you can test it this way a little file to file the surface down and then test underneath is a good idea if you're worried about gold plated items okay here we are nugget from Pinkerton picker from Pinkerton and nugget from Nuggets by Grant three good scratch lines and I'm going to test them all now I'm gonna start with the 10 karat solution I really hope all of these nuggets are bigger than 10 character Kerik are higher than 10 carat they better be we'll then try the 14-karat solution making sure the acids don't mix then the 18 carat solution this is where you're gonna find a lot of nuggets it is that 18 carat these all seem to hold up to the 18 carat test and then the 22 carat solution now 22 carat solution is the nastiest acid that's on here in fact it's a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid called aqua regia now it's not perfect aqua regia perfect aqua regia will actually dissolve pure gold this is a diluted version that is serve designed to dissolve 22 karat gold and now we can have a nice close look at this to see what's happening now if you look at this here all the nuggets are 10 karat easy you can see through the acid that they're all 10 karat they're all at least 14 karat they are all at least 18 karat but then we move on to the 22 and it looks like the Pinkerton nugget is not 22 looks like the picker ttan picker is closed because there's still a little bit of it but it is dissolving so I'd say that's around 22 and then the nugget from Nuggets by grant is still sticking around nicely so that one is definitely at least 22 karat and that makes sense the big the smaller the piece of plaster gold the more it's been refined by nature itself so I can see why the picker ttan picker is a little bit higher quality than the picker - nugget is that makes sense and I believe this nugget here from Nuggets by grant comes from Australia where they have very high quality high carat gold so it is a very high quality piece of gold well let's look at the two pieces of refined gold I have we have this pearl here from that recent video I took on recovering some lost gold where guys melted something it went bad night got it all back for him and then this little bead here was from the blue-chip mine where ice melted and compelled some of the gold now I say refine but it's not refined pure this has just gone through a smelting process of some sort the big piece here is still gonna have some base metals in it copper lead maybe some iron and it'll have a silver content this guy here is mostly gonna be gold silver and if there was any platinum in it some platinum but I assume this is a fairly high quality one I assume this one's not bad but a little bit lower let's test it and find out first a big scratch oh that's a nice big scratch now the little bead you get scratched from it - oh yeah we got some scratches put those beside it bring a test with a 10-carat first this done better be at least 10 carat no problem with 10 carat now 14 seems to be sticking around nicely at 1480 and they both seem to be sticking around for 18 as well let's see with 22 and at 22 they both see ah nope the big Prell here is starting to go away at 22 the little bead is still sticking around at 22 so there we go the little bead is higher than 22 carat it's really nice and pure the big pearl is gone away at 22 and it's still mostly there at 18 so it's somewhere between 18 and 22 carat and I'm gonna explain in a second how you figure out percentages of gold from the carat value it's really easy but that will tell you that there is a bit more lead copper and iron in that prill and that this one here is mostly silver and gold there we go the smelting process is working its refining that gold and nice pure levels and kind of what I expected them to be at as well let's let's talk a little bit about carat value versus percentage of gold 24-karat is pure gold meaning that 24 parts of 24 are made of gold if you went down to a 12 carat gold only 12 of 24 parts are gold meaning it's 50% gold if you went down to like 6 carat I have you only bought a quarter of the overall weight of material is gold now 14 carat 14 is 14 of 24 that is just over half I think that's like point six something gold 18 carat that's about 3/4 3/4 of the material is gold of 75 percent the rest is and copper and some other metals to give the gold strength or in the case of placer gold or refined gold it's just the other stuff that's left in there now to calculate the value of a piece of gold from that information you have all you need to do is start by weighing it you know have a good way it is two point three three grams you're gonna find a gold value calculator online there are dozens of them just type it into Google you'll find it and you'll put in the weight the carat value the carat value of that guy I believe was about eighteen and some of them will automatically have today's value built into the calculator some of them you'll have to look up today's value and put it in there and then hit the calculate button and it'll tell you for instance this is point two point three three grams at eighteen and that comes out to just looking at my screen right now eighty seven dollars and 49 cents us for that nugget it's gold value placer gold is worth more than its gold value to okay let's look at this ring which was ten karat gold throw it on the scale it comes out to one gram of gold that ring has one gram but that's one gram of ten karat gold and one gram with ten karat gold comes out to about twenty dollars in gold now the one you guys all want to know for sure the Golden Nugget from Nuggets by grant it's weight comes in at ten point eight seven grams and we know it's twenty-two plus so let's calculate that so at today's value just the value of gold alone in that nugget it's four hundred and ninety eight eighty six US dollars for that nugget again that's just the gold value nugget value is usually a lot higher than that probably add twenty percent to that fits nugget value especially because it's so pure I said there is one more thing you have to do if you want to win this gold nugget I'm gonna give this gold nugget away on patreon go over to the patreon site and leave a call and in the post about the nugget giveaway if you'd like to learn more about becoming a patron and helping support my channel so I can make videos educational videos like this please head off to patreon calm down hurt where you can learn more about becoming part of my patreon community and there will be a post there about this nugget giveaway you leave a comment in that post and you can be entered to win this gold nugget big big big thanks to my patrons because of your support because you guys pledged to me to make these videos I can spend time and money and everything needed to make these videos so that all of YouTube can watch thank you so much patrons for your support I really hope you enjoy watching this video I hope you learned a lot along the way and possibly can actually use this in your own prospecting again if you want to buy one of these kits for testing gold it also has silver and platinum testing stuff in it I have a kit in my store on my new webpage WWN or prospecting comm where you can buy this exact kit I'm using here to test your own gold I really hope you enjoyed this please if you enjoyed it leave that like leave me a comment you gotta leave a comment to win and if you haven't subscribed already and you enjoyed this video if there's a really good chance you'll enjoy my other videos I have hundreds of more videos that I have made and hundreds more that I will be making so please consider subscribing to my channel good luck to everyone who enters to win the gold nugget and if you want to see more nuggets that Nuggets by Grant has there's a link below and a discount code use my discount code for 5% off for any Nuggets by Grant gold until the next one everyone bye oh and a little PostScript here tell me what you think about this video and the video quality I am using the hero GoPro 8 and it's the first video I shot on my new hero camera I'm hoping the quality is good I'm hoping the quality's awesome and I'm hoping it stands up a bit better to the abuse I give my cameras you

Channel: Dan Hurd

Views: 194,721

Keywords: testing gold, gold testing, gold nugget, gold nugget testing, gold jewelry testing, gold testing kit, gold value, value of gold, gold purity, purity of gold, nuggets by grant, acid test, scratch test, what is the value, what is it worth, give away, placer gold, gold panning, buy gold, sell gold, cash for gold, fake gold, scrap gold, buy gold bullion

Id: oek3cSKhy8o

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 26 2020