Science in our modern age of technological progress does not stand still, since every day more and more ways are invented to turn it to the benefit of humanity as a whole and specific people in particular, including those who are not the most clean in terms of relations with the law and conscience - scammers selling silver, silver plated and made “silver” jewelry. In order not to become their victims, you need to resort to the services of specialists, or at least know how to determine silver at home. This will be the focus of our article.
First you need to know the properties of the material itself, from which women's and men's jewelry is made. Silver is a noble metal with the properties of high thermal conductivity, bends well and does not magnetize. Knowing this, you can offer several ways to determine silver at home:
- silver jewelry, rings and cutlery easily take over the heat of the hand, and if you dip a part of the product into hot water, then very quickly it will become as hot as this water;
- if you bring a magnet to a real silver product, then it will continue to lie in its place, since magnetization is not peculiar to noble metals;
- the third method refers to a kind of extreme measures that it is better not to resort to unless absolutely necessary - unlike a brass counterfeit, a real silver product can be bent.
In addition, there are a number of ways to determine silver at home, such as:
- rub silver in your hands - if the product leaves traces, it means it contains zinc, which indicates a low quality of the metal;
- scratch with a needle - if silver slides, exposing the base of another metal, then you have a fake;
- rub with chalk - after contact with real silver, the chalk starts to blacken (works with silver-plated objects);
- anoint with sulfuric ointment, sold in any pharmacy, - real silver darkens when it comes in contact with sulfur (as in the previous case, it can work when the item is simply silver-plated). The color is restored after boiling the item in a soda solution with a piece of aluminum foil;
- drip iodine - when it comes in contact with it, the silver turns black, and the higher the sample, the faster the reaction. Another thing is that such a blackness is not subsequently washed away;
- to check the chemical reaction - drip nitric acid, and then drop it there with a solution of sodium chloride, as a result of which a curdled precipitate of silver chloride should appear in the drop (viewed under a magnifying glass). If the precipitate is crystalline, then we have lead chloride, and the subject is a fake.
Some people are able to detect silver by smell, but now this method needs to be relied on less and less, because the aroma of this metal can be given to the product by flavoring.
We examined several options for how to determine silver at home, however, each of these methods allows a certain error, especially if they are used by a layman. Therefore, to determine the sample and quality of silver, we recommend contacting a specialized jewelry store or pawnshop, where for a small fee they will give you an exact answer to the question of whether the item is silver, silver plated or fake.