Is This Silver? At Home Tests for How to Tell

Sometimes curiosity gets the best of you, sidetracking you to follow an irrational thought to a rewarding path, you hope, and this was certainly the case last Friday.  A friend of mine came to me inquiring about a slim silver-tone bracelet that was given to her.  She wanted to know if this lovely present was actually made of silver or not.  And I realized that I didn't have an easy answer for her.  Determined to remedy this, the two of us set on a quest for practical tests to find out if something is truly silver. 

Test #1 --- Acid

This test called for Nitric Acid, which, as I'm sure you could guess, we did not have on hand.  Just to give it a shot we tried this test, substituting lemon juice instead of the Nitric Acid.  The results were supposed to be that for 100-90% silver a drop of acid will turn milky in color when it comes in contact with silver. This proved very disappointing. Our results were nearly indistinguishable from a regular drop of water on silver.  (Test found here)

Test #2 -- Magnets

The next test seemed more promising and ---we hoped--- more conclusive.  Only iron-based metals, known as ferrous metals, are magnetic.  Therefore, any solid silver item should not react when coming in contact with a magnet.  Doing this test, we did get the hoped for result, getting no magnetic reaction. The problem was, however, that there is something profoundly unsatisfying about a test that results in no response. And, even if the object was made of copper and plated with silver the outcome of this test would have been the same.

So we were left feeling unconvinced and continued searching for a test which clearly communicated a positive reaction.

Test #3 --- Silver rings like a bell

This test sounded promising, but after attempting to "ring" the silver bangle with a pen, the graphite tip of a pencil (no really--- we were instructed to try this!), and a wooden take-out chopstick and getting nothing more compelling than a single note "thud", we moved swiftly onto the next test.

Test #4 --- The excellent conductivity of Silver

It figures, of course that the most satisfying of our tests was the last one we tried, utilizing the high conductivity inherent to silver.  This test uses simply an ice cube to test the metal's reaction and was so clear and conclusive that the difference from the others was like that of night and day.  The object should become notably cold to the touch: 5-10 seconds for solid silver versus around 30 seconds for a plated object.  So we went ahead with the ice cube, resting the bottom edge of the bracelet on top of a 2 inch ice cube.  Within seconds of the ice cube coming into contact with the skinny band of metal you could feel cold creep up the object and travel all the way to the portion of metal held by our fingers!  Success! 

This test was shared by James Chunn of Thedore, Alabama, and can be found HERE!

If you have a test for identifying silver we would love to hear about it!  Please leave your test of choice as a comment below.   

Interested in making some of your own smashing jewelry? As a jewelry design instructor at the Sheffield School in New York, I encourage you to take the matter of making into your own hands! Check out the newly launched Jewelry Design Course offered at the Sheffield School.  With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any other school in the world.

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Comments

[Roulette Winning System]

Really interesting stuff! keep up the great posts

[Custom Bobblehead]

Great ! Learn a lot from your posts

[Fine Silver Jewelry in Beverly Hills]

Great post on finding out the purity of your silver jewelry! I wish I had came across this post sooner. Thank you for your wonderful insight about checking silver!

[Steven]

Brilliant tips here, Rings like a bell, love that.

[Jaguar Service Atlanta]

I wish I had seen this before I bought a couple of "silver" pieces in a yard sale.
I ran some of these tests and they obviously aren't silver. =(
sad day.

[Plugs and Tunnels]

This information just helped me out a ton! I am looking to get silver studs for a certain collection in my shop. Thanks

[Boris]

Good tips. I will also test different the things that my collection of silver accessories. I like to collect desk accessories made from silver. Now it's time I test whether the goods are genuine or fake?
Thanks for the tips provided.

[Discount Dual LNBs]

Great post... loved the ice cube trick... that's got to be head and shoulders above the other tests... and so easy to lay your hands on some ice to do it... thanks for the tip!

[Leonard Carter | avisos clasificados]

Fantastic post ! the test based on ice is really good, I will try it at home. Great idea from James using silver conductivity properties for testing real silver objects..
Thank for that nice post.

Leo.

[Chullos]

Useful tips to test different silver accessories. Thank you for your wonderful insight about checking silver. To check more unique silver jewelry you can visit www.PeruAndArts.com they have genuine silver jewelry of course.

[GoldSilverPricestoday]

Good test to put your silver through its paces. Given that gold & silver prices are on the rise, its worth to know what you are putting your money towards. Silver and its counterpart gold are lifetime investments so these simple tests do come in handy

[gemstone jewellery]

Very neat tips I tried all my silver jewels. I tried with magnet and found the silver ones! thanks.

[Cho Yung Plus]

Amazing art,,Nice work,,keep it up it spreads a lot of love and affection,,,

[Melly Lifshitz]

Good thing the bracelet is not a plated one. Nice tips, btw.

[Jim Anda]

Another test: taste... Silver has no taste. Metal object have their specific taste. iron, brass, copper, zamac, zinc, you name it. By the way, the nitric acid test is destructive, so you wouldn;t want to do it in a visible place. On https://jewels-n-pearls.com you can find a number of very nice silver items to do the test with!

[eorgassas]

Testing silver at home for authenticity and purity is easy. Silver is considered a precious metal and luckily for consumers, nearly all consumer items that are silver are marked sterling silver. Bullion silver bars are typically .999 pure silver, meaning other metals have not been used to alloy the silver. A simple acid test can reveal if an item is pure silver or if it is plated

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[aurata]

My favorite test method is crude but quick. Using the fact that solid silver is an excellent conductor of heat, I place an ice cube in or on the object and see how quickly the article becomes cold to the touch. For something like a teaspoon with ice in the bowl, the handle becomes cold in about 5-10 seconds. A plated spoon takes about 30 seconds. I have not tried silver plated copper pieces, however.

[link pyramid]

Oh, this work wonder ! Thanks for the nice tips !

[Short Dresses]

beautiful work...

[gaurav]

You should look for mark such as 925, which indicate that jewelry contain 92.5% of pure silver. If the jewelry has not such marking then it is fake or just silver plated.

www.indiagems.com

[snel geld lenen zonder bkt]

Very interesting!

keep up the good work!

gr,
www.snelgeldlenenzonderbkr.org

[cowsky]

Another great tips from you. That would be lovely to know this great tips from you. I am the one who love to wear silver jewelry. They are cheap and it comes with bright light.

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[Roy]

Very interesting! keep up the really good work!

[Rare British Coins]

Good information, just be careful before trying any of these methods on your rare or old silver coins!

[Claudia Bradby]

That's the first time I've heard of the ice cube test to test for silver.