# Dissolving a old bracelet, silver or what?



## Dude4ever (Jun 30, 2016)

Hey folks.
I found a bracelet in my lawn, I found it with a metal detector.
I could not figure out what metal it is made of, so I made the 50/50 nitric brew to dissolve it.
But after an hour of gentle boiling, I can't see any significant change.
The brown gas is consistently present though, and the nitric acid eats the metal away very slowly, so does the bubbles tell me. But If somebody could take a look at the pictures provided, and have seen something similar before. I would love to get your opinion about what kind of metal(s) this seems to indicate  Thanks!


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## upcyclist (Jul 1, 2016)

Did you try spot-testing before you dunked it in acid? Using Schwerter's to test for silver? What color was it before you put it in the nitric?

You should always try to identify what you have before you put it in acid. Otherwise, how do you know what's in your solution now, or in the gas coming off of it? Is it worthless? Hazardous?


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## 4metals (Jul 1, 2016)

Did you make your 50/50 nitric using distilled water or (chlorinated) tap water?


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## Dude4ever (Jul 2, 2016)

Allright guys, sorry for posting a question the fast way, I should know better  hehe, may I elaborate;

We found this necklace/bracelet 10cm down in my lawn, with a metal detector.
We identified most of the Crap that we found besides, and evidence shows that hippies lived in my apartment (basement). The significance is of course that anything we find can not be dated older than 1960, if older, items will not be found laying neatly and close together in fragments, like the bracelet in question.
Of course finds are exciting, because jewelry will be return on the investment, but identifying is equally cool.

I dug this up together with my brother, and as you may imagine, we started right away trying to identify what it is made of. I do not think we have actually found the whole piece yet either, but we did get the piece with the lock :lol: Unfortunately we couldn't find any numbers or letters there (looking for 925 or 830 marking).

We both reacted to the fact that it was lighter in weight, than it's volume/size indicated visually,
and in a damaged part of it, we saw that the metal was porous-looking, looked just like tiny tiny airbubbles.
So working through the theory, we could believe that it was some kind of cheap hippie 70's blingbling metal, or we could believe that the manufacturer wanted to put air in it, because it lowered his cost of silver metal. :roll: 

Next step is of course, how do we test this metal? I spent a reasonable amount of time in the forum/online to see if any direct tests were easily conducted, and frankly put; there is no way to do it within an hour like I wanted it to be. It takes some research and time, but the size of what I have dug up, does not justify the means to initiate that kind of effort  It can be viewed just as a Case-Study, field training project.  
The strategy became to do a passive test, and the only metal that came to our mind that could possibly be made into a cheap and lightweight bracelet, suitable for the free spirits in the 1970's, would seem to be aluminium. So the test were simple; dump the whole thing into some Hydrochloric acid and wait, if it vanished in a spectacular (and unsafe 8) ) way, we would at least know that it wasn't silver.

Basically, nothing happened. It cleaned it really really well though, but the bubbles just got smaller and smaller. We did not heat the acid, because as you know, or should experience, aluminium knows and hates that it is doomed when it is surrounded by HCl, but it WILL NOT leave this world without having it's fists swinging, and will go nuclear on you. So better try some foil and know, than throwing in a necklace and get to know hell. :twisted: :lol: Anyhow, that is my safety warning for new enthusiasts :!: 

The treatment did have a effect on its appearance, it seemed to make the whole thing "sparkle".
I did not take a picture, but some metal (or oxide layer) were dissolved, so that the uneven structure gave it the appearance of looking almost mineral-like.

So I chose not to research this, but brought it instead to the local jewelry-store, just to see if I could get a second opinion. But as interesting they thought it was, they could not directly determine what it is made of. I did never plan to spend money on getting it checked, so it went home with me again.

That brings us up to date, where I decided to treat it like silver or sterling silver of some sort.
Having tested and completed this prosess before, with an old spoon that really seemed to be made of 830 silver, indicated by magnetic and auditory testing (possible with metal detector as a way to get an educated guess & using "Iron Sound" feature), but were easily proven to NOT be silver at all after nitric acid prosess.

My process, for the "Bracelace":
-2.5ml 65% nitric / gram of metal
-50/50 Nitric acid and destilled H2O
-Hot plate at 200-300W setting
-Pyrex flask & curved watchglass as lid/condensator
-Printed & assembled relevant instructions from goldnscrap.com
-Not going for the C. M. Hoke Silver Nitrate method, I will precipitate with copper pipe as Lazersteve shows.

After running the recommended procedures, and letting it sit with the watchglass weighted down, gently boiling for some hours, checking the progress showed that it hardly made any progress at all, DESPITE the thick brown gas that usually (for me), indicates that the metal should be disappearing fairly rapidly... :shock: It took forever, so I turned off the heating to leave it standing for a day, but it turned into 2 days instead, so now all the liquid is evaporated, but the chain are still standing strong in the puddle of it's own blood xD BUT... This provides a hint that may just solve the main question; is there any silver, or not any silver. The crystallization that occurred, as you see in the pictures, looks exactly like silver nitrate should look like, so I would REALLY love to hear assessments from experienced refiners or silver alloy experts at this point, to learn more about the other metals that can be or are mixed in there, and how to sort out a situation like this, where to me I would guess 100% Silver, or alloyed with a Nitric Acid resistive base/precious metal, and what the most strategically sound thing to do would be at this point :idea: 

I hope this paints a clearer picture of the experiment I want to conduct, and yes I absolutely knows that dealing with Nitric Acid or any acid is both toxic and unforgiving, if not careful. Those gases that forms when dissolving metals with Nitric, tells you by it's alarming color, it's intrusive smell, and by the research that must be done before you even should try working with acids, that you just invited Death to hang out with you for a little while, so when doing that it must happen outdoors for us that don't have more fancy solutions, and you need to be careful to make sure you maintain a healthy distance & a respectful approach, no matter what activity is conducted, no matter time or place.

But this IS and should be fun, interesting, fulfilling, informative or any other awesome motivation you may have, to go learn it, & go do it! :lol: :mrgreen:


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## nickvc (Jul 3, 2016)

You can try two simple tests, add some distilled water to your dried acid crystals, take a small sample and add a piece of copper wire or sheet something not to thin or small, old copper pipe opened up is good,if you get cementation occuring it is probably silver, take another small sample and add some salt, if you get a white precipitate filter and dry it, if when exposed to sunlight it changes to a dark colour from white you probably have silver chloride.


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## justinhcase (Jul 3, 2016)

If it was silver you would have got a thick coating of white cake that is silver chloride when you tried Hydrochloric acid. The fact it came out bright an did not dissolves is no indication of value.
There are a great many alloys that share traits of there component parts ,E,G, as light as aluminium and as resistant to acid as Titanium.
The link form reminds me of a very cheep plated chain use in cheap jewellery and hand bags.
Note no solder just bent into shape.
Put one link into A.R. and drive of the NO2,then test with stannous just to be certain.
But I am pretty sure if it was in my hand I would not waste any time on it.


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## Dude4ever (Jul 3, 2016)

@nickvc
I totally agree with your suggestions man, it's so easy that it should have being obvious 
The salt is not actually dry, and disturbing it too much produces some brown nox still,
so I will try consuming the excess nitric with some of the original metal, and then test that batch with copper. Thank you for helping 8) 

@justinhcase
I beg the differ, HCl will not dissolve silver, that is why I did it as a quick test/experiment.
If you did read my whole post (I know it's a pocket book), then you know that I really did not intend to care about if it got completely destroyed or not. It turned out to be better than I expected, and behave in ways that did not provide the immediate results needed to say definitely that it is NOT silver, so now I have invested interest in this piece as a case-study and education through practice. 

The method you describe is generally the method for recovery of gold with AR and test with stannous, and stannous solution can not be used to test for silver, but I will use it if I think I got platinum in there, but mixing methods all over the place is not my style, it will ruin the experiment in my opinion.
Because nitric acid dissolves silver on it's own, this seems unnecessary, and the quick research I did verified that very nicely. In fact C.M. Hokes book gives a complete answer on 1 method for silver recovery, and silver is the metal I decided to treat it as. So far it gives results that seem to confirm the theory, I will update the post with results as soon as I can. 8) 

Anyone else that has suggestions are still welcome to share their thoughts :mrgreen: Thanks!


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## justinhcase (Jul 3, 2016)

@justinhcase
I beg the differ, HCl will not dissolve silver, that is why I did it as a quick test/experiment.
If you did read my whole post (I know it's a pocket book), then you know that I really did not intend to care about if it got completely destroyed or not. It turned out to be better than I expected, and behave in ways that did not provide the immediate results needed to say definitely that it is NOT silver, so now I have invested interest in this piece as a case-study and education through practice. 

The method you describe is generally the method for recovery of gold with AR and test with stannous, and stannous solution can not be used to test for silver, but I will use it if I think I got platinum in there, but mixing methods all over the place is not my style, it will ruin the experiment in my opinion.
Because nitric acid dissolves silver on it's own, this seems unnecessary, and the quick research I did verified that very nicely. In fact C.M. Hokes book gives a complete answer on 1 method for silver recovery, and silver is the metal I decided to treat it as. So far it gives results that seem to confirm the theory, I will update the post with results as soon as I can. 8) 

quite right. Silver will not dissolve in Hydrochloric.
If you try it you will find it becomes covered in A thick coat of Silver Chloride, which pacifies the metal and stops the entire lump turning to AgCl. You have to physically knock it off or dissolve in Ammonia.
I must have miss understood you as I thought in you initial post you then said you tried in Nitric acid.
Being that you found it acid resistant it was obviously not a silver alloy so just to save time and to give you the practise I suggested you screen for any preciouses metal content.
I did not expect you to find any thing and I did not want to confuse you by suggesting DMG even though it is quite lightly Nickel is one of it's minor components.
Got to love Ms Hoke if you have read the hole book and carried out her most excellent acquisitional experiments I doubt you would need to post.
I know exactly the kind of Chain you have it is produced in extremely large quantity's and used on a multitude of thing. mostly toys and cheep fashion accessory's.
When I get home I will see if I have any in my bin to show you.


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## Dude4ever (Jul 3, 2016)

Well, I see what you are trying to say. But this is only true for alloys, not pure silver, is that fair enough? 
I know you have a piece looking just like that, but taking into account that the HCl reaction slowed down, this piece I have is still a candidate for being silver.

I'll know much more after testing, will be posting by tomorrow :mrgreen:


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## justinhcase (Jul 3, 2016)

Dude4ever said:


> Well, I see what you are trying to say. But this is only true for alloys, not pure silver, is that fair enough?
> No.
> Only very low content alloys can be digested anywhere near Chloride Ions.
> It produces a lot of AgCl for not a lot of Ag which is why it is such a good indicator.
> ...


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## upcyclist (Jul 5, 2016)

Not to sound like a broken record, but look up Schwerter's Solution on eBay or Amazon and get some. Not only for this chain, but for anything else you dig up with your detector. Then take a look-see at Lazersteve's General Reaction List. You'll find Schwerter's, as well as how to make it if you're so inclined, at #22.

If you suspect plating, file through the top 0.1mm and try another drop.

A drop of Schwerter's is faster, less costly, and less dangerous than dunking your finds in beakers with acid.


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