Strange gold jewellery

[Dave86]

I bought a piece a while back that has been puzzling me. It puzzled me at the time, so I only offered a small amount of cash for it. It is a chain/bracelet that has some chunky pieces in it, connected by lines of small rings. Three lines of rings connecting each chunky bit, and there are three chunky bits/three ring chains to the piece.

I've tested the chunky pieces to destruction (deep filing placing acid directly in the nicks) and I'm convinced they are 9ct - or at least 8ct. However, the ring pieces are weakly magnetic. My rare earth will pick them up, but they dont have much pull to them, not like some plated I've seen where I have to litterally yank them off. These things will brush off the magnet easily. I've acid tested them and again it seems like a typical 8/9ct reaction, maybe a little on the lower side but still around that mark. It's hard to acid test them because they are fairly small, so I did a streak test, streaking three times on the same parts and each line had the same reaction.

The piece has the makers mark on but nothing else, no indication of carat at all.

Any clues? Anyone seen anything like this before? I was thinking maybe the rings had a steel wiring in the centre and have unfolded them to see, but haven't noticed anything. I left a little piece in a dash of acid over night and it lost it's magnetism.

 

[Harold_V]

I left a little piece in a dash of acid over night and it lost it's magnetism.

Test the resulting solution (only a drop) by adding a drop of ammonium hydroxide and a drop of DMG. I expect that you have removed enough nickel to alter the piece's magnetic properties. If that's the case, the color of the test, after adding DMG, should be pink. Prior to adding the DMG, I would expect that the solution would be a vivid blue.

Can you not see the value of learning how to test?

Harold

 

[nickvc]

Harolds advice about learning testing is spot on as expected.
I will say I have encountered similar items that seem suspicious that will be weakly attracted to a magnet, they all seem to be ok as to regards the gold content so I suspect the alloying is a case of whatever could be found went in so long as it was cheap, I never found silver among the alloys.

 

[trashmaster]

Hi Dave .... Everything that you want to learn about Gold and Testing can be found here ...;;;

NOXX's University of Gold... :lol:

 

[Dave86]

I am indeed learning to test, and whilst I already know a lot I'm sure there is even more. RE: Harold's comments on nickel. This piece is yellow metal - I was under the impression nickel gives a very white colour to an alloy. I shall try and get hold of those chemicals, but pardon my ignorance for asking: what is DMG?

 

[jimdoc]

what is DMG?

Dimethylglyoxime. Used for testing palladium and nickel.