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



## raidaru (Dec 27, 2017)

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!


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## nickvc (Dec 27, 2017)

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.


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## Lino1406 (Dec 27, 2017)

It may be also of bio/plant (organic) origin. The suggested test is only negating copper.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Dec 27, 2017)

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.


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## raidaru (Dec 27, 2017)

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.


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## nickvc (Dec 27, 2017)

If it looks like copper chances are it is....sorry :shock:


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## snoman701 (Dec 27, 2017)

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.


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## raidaru (Dec 27, 2017)

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...........


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## jimdoc (Dec 27, 2017)

Where did you get this gold powder, and why do you expect it to be real gold?


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## snoman701 (Dec 27, 2017)

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.


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## raidaru (Dec 28, 2017)

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)


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## g_axelsson (Dec 28, 2017)

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


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## Lino1406 (Dec 28, 2017)

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


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## archeonist (Dec 29, 2017)

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.


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## Lino1406 (Dec 29, 2017)

Brown, red, even blue are the nanogold colors. With oxalic acid the size is higher


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## Lou (Dec 29, 2017)

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.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Dec 29, 2017)

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.


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## g_axelsson (Dec 29, 2017)

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.
> ...


I've done that once, made some nice crystals. 
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=20065&p=205090#p205090

Göran


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## im1badpup1 (Jan 2, 2018)

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.


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## orang (Jan 5, 2018)

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


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## FrugalRefiner (Jan 5, 2018)

orang said:


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


When you find a term you don't understand, you can find most of them in the Glossary of Common Terms.

Dave


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 5, 2018)

The bright shiny pure gold flakes in Goldwasser are real 24K gold leaf ground or broken up into pieces.

https://www.google.com/search?q=goldwasser&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi8v4_0o8HYAhXn7oMKHQEpDJkQ_AUICygC&biw=1366&bih=596#imgrc=cGn9Y8NeezU0YM:

Search for gold flakes ebay on the forum. There were maybe a 100 threads on this subject. When the forum was young, about 8 or 9 years ago, there were many unscrupulous sellers selling fake gold leaf on EBay (and, still are) and implying it was real gold. It was usually sold in small glass vials. In every case, with no exception that I recall, there was zero gold in this stuff. It was all a shiny brass type copper alloy. It looked like the stuff in your last photo on this thread.

None of the items labeled "gold leaf flake" on this or any other ebay page contain any gold at all, that I can see. This scam, and it definitely is a scam due to its mislabeling, has been running for at least 10 years and EBay has done nothing about it. 

Right now, the gold spot is $1318/tr.oz., or a little over $42/gram. Real Gold Leaf sells from about double to triple the gold spot, depending mainly on how much you buy. Compare the prices on this page and then tell me whether there's any real gold there. Also, the bulk density of real gold leaf pieces is probably less that that of feathers, literally. I saw some that was claimed to be real leaf in vials. It looked like a lot, but to weigh the gold, you would need at least a 3 place scale. A 3-1/8" square sheet (9.77 sq.in.) of 24K gold leaf weighs about .015g - about $0.63 worth of gold. That figures about .0000044" thick. When a glass sign-artist sticks a sheet of leaf flat on a window, you can see light through it. 

The reason I'm harping on gold leaf is that it's one of my passions. I've applied real gold leaf to 100's of my hand carved mahogany or redwood signs and it takes a fair learning curve to handle it. Even a slight draft (or a sneeze) will blow it around the room. It's nearly impossible to touch it with your fingers without tearing it. The standard way to cut it into pieces is with a fingernail. You pick it up with about a $60, 3" or 4" wide brush (called a gilder's tip) made of squirrel hair. You first rub the brush through your own hair to get a slight static charge and a little oil on it so the leaf will slightly stick to the brush.
It is truly a lot of fun to gold leaf.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=gold+flake&_sacat=0


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