What are the latest techniques in metal testing to be sure you are getting full value?

One thing for certain is that the old-fashioned kind of test that you have probably seen performed – the one where you rub a piece of jewelry on a stone and then drip some testing fluid on it, wastes a small quantity of precious metal. Why? Because in order to do the test, you have to rub off a quantity of that metal, you cannot reclaim it.

We recently spent a few hours in the company of an expert jeweler, looking through a batch of old jewelry scrap. It was amazing to watch him work. He seemed to have a kind of sixth sense about what he was looking at. He picked up a small chain and said, “This is solid gold.” Then he looked at an old watch and said, “The case is gold plated, not worth much.” Then he looked at a ring and said that although it looked like platinum, it was base metal that had a thin level of chrome or other bright-metal plating applied to it. Again, not worth more than a few cents.

Do you have a quantity of jewelry pieces – findings, bits of chain, clasps or pins, perhaps – that you suspect might be valuable karat gold jewelry scrap? Or how about an old coin or piece of bullion that might, or might not, be pure karat gold?