Gold powder 24K - how to verify it's genuine?

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

raidaru

New member
Joined
Dec 27, 2017
Messages
4
Hi fellas! I'm new on this forum, and I came accross some gold powder,very fine, it is supposed to be 24K and problem is I don't know how to verify if it's actually 24K, heck, I don't even know if it is gold!! I tried to melt 1 gram in a potato with borax with a butane thrower that was too weak, the result was some lame flake with the colour of copper(it was glowing orange on top but it didn't actually melt).Neo magnet doesn't attract it. I'll post some pics and wait for opinions, thanks a lot!
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20171223_192737.jpg
    IMG_20171223_192737.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 510
  • IMG_20171223_193225.jpg
    IMG_20171223_193225.jpg
    1 MB · Views: 510
  • IMG_20171223_192722.jpg
    IMG_20171223_192722.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 510
  • IMG_20171223_192708.jpg
    IMG_20171223_192708.jpg
    1,000.5 KB · Views: 510
  • IMG_20171227_124222.jpg
    IMG_20171227_124222.jpg
    910.5 KB · Views: 499
Most gold powders are not gold but you very rarely find one that is, to test take a small sample and add a drop of nitric, if it’s gold you will get no reaction if it’s coppper based you will have brown noxx fumes and a blue / green stain left.
 
The heated sample has a copper color to it.

Possibly it was the copper based "gold flake" that got crumbled up into "powder"

Dissolve and test with stannous.
 
nickvc said:
Most gold powders are not gold but you very rarely find one that is, to test take a small sample and add a drop of nitric, if it’s gold you will get no reaction if it’s coppper based you will have brown noxx fumes and a blue / green stain left.
Unfortunately I can't find nitric acid in my town, but whatever that powder is it should melt with an oxy-propane/acetylene torch,like the guys on youtube do.I'll add some borax just in case it's gold :lol: And the melted piece if it looks like gold(not copper like the heated flake) I'll take it to a jewelery store to see what purity it has.
 
If you can take it to the jewelry store post melt, you can take it now. All they need is a drop of nitric, which they likely have from their testing kit.
 
snoman701 said:
If you can take it to the jewelry store post melt, you can take it now. All they need is a drop of nitric, which they likely have from their testing kit.
I went to them but they are soo stupid, they refused, they said the only way is to scratch the board with a solid piece of gold. I bet they've never seen gold powder in their life. Anyway I'll melt some powder today and see what colour will result, but probably same as the flake resulted in heating the powder, cooper colour........... :(
 
I wouldn't say they are stupid, when you are buying something by the gram, you don't go outside of your comfort zone.

They could prove that it has gold content, but they wouldn't be able to put a price on it.

I personally wouldn't want to try to melt that stuff in a jewelry store setting because of the expected loss.
 
I've managed finally to test it with nitric, smoke and green/blue colour, so - just another piece of $hyt :lol: Thanks everyone for the help, and GL with PURE GOLD :G 8)
 
Have anyone seen any 24k pure gold powder in this form?

We have all seen 24k pure gold powder in the form we get when precipitating gold from solution, but that is a cinnamon brown powder that easily clumps together. I haven't seen a free flowing fine gold powder yet but it would be interesting to know if there exists powders like above but with gold in it.
So far every example shown on the forum has been base metal and the antique bottle marked gold powder that I have is also base metal.

Göran
 
The chart below shows that summing copper and tin (or zinc which is similar) reflectances
results in gold's reflectance imitation (bronze). Some imitations are better than what we've seen here
 

Attachments

  • SILVER COPPER TIN GOLD REFLECTIVITIES.jpg
    SILVER COPPER TIN GOLD REFLECTIVITIES.jpg
    60.8 KB · Views: 358
I do have seen shiny gold powder. I once bought one gram of gold in powdery form. It was for a gold panning demonstration for my students. The powder particles were too small, so I melted it into a button. I always wondered how they were able to make shiny powder since I always recover cinnamon like brown powder. I think they use oxalic acid for the precipitation process. Never done this myself as I am comfortabel with smb. There are several examples on the forum as on YouTube where you can see little shiny cristals in mixture after adding oxalic acid to a gold solution.
 
Yes, with careful addition of oxalic acid solution (usually best to add gold solution to the boiling ammonium oxalate solution) you can get a crystalline golden sand.

Otherwise, gold can be atomized.
 
I know this is heresy at its finest here.
but..

Gold amalgamation that has the mercury removed via nitric acid will leave some pretty looking gold.
Never done it personally, but I seen it on that there youtube.
It looked gorgeous.
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
I know this is heresy at its finest here.
but..

Gold amalgamation that has the mercury removed via nitric acid will leave some pretty looking gold.
Never done it personally, but I seen it on that there youtube.
It looked gorgeous.
I've done that once, made some nice crystals. :)
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=20065&p=205090#p205090

Göran
 
Super fine powders would be add super fine particles and have the solution in motion when adding to drop the gold i guess.

If you want to grow gold crystals mercury is one way or you could use molybdenyum oxide flux in a furnace and get gold crystals certainly a few mm in size as the molybdenyum gradually evaporates off. Its similar process to growing rubies or sapphires. Theres literature on it try 'mno3 flux gold crystals flame fusion' as a search.
If you had the time youd be able to grow quite large gold crystals.
 
archeonist said:
I do have seen shiny gold powder. I once bought one gram of gold in powdery form. It was for a gold panning demonstration for my students. The powder particles were too small, so I melted it into a button. I always wondered how they were able to make shiny powder since I always recover cinnamon like brown powder. I think they use oxalic acid for the precipitation process. Never done this myself as I am comfortabel with smb. There are several examples on the forum as on YouTube where you can see little shiny cristals in mixture after adding oxalic acid to a gold solution.

sorry but im not chemist
I want to know what is the smb?
the chemical name or some thing like that

thank you very much
 
Back
Top