Have you ever stumbled across a box of jewelry and found piles of gold items that you have never worn? Necklaces, rings, watches, chains: items galore that are doing nothing other than sitting around and collecting dust. Selling old, unused, or broken jewelry can be a great way to have a little extra cash, but the jewelry isn’t worth much if it’s gold-plated rather than real gold.
While it may be tempting to grab handfuls of the gold jewelry and run straight to a jewelry store in Nassau County, it’s not worth your time to bring in bags of fools gold. Before wasting your time, you should determine whether or not your gold is real and worth anything. Even if you may not be an expert, there are many ways that you can test the purity of your gold jewelry at home. You can search your gold for marks hinting at its purity, doing a magnet test, testing it against your skin, checking for impurities in color, putting it in water, or scraping it against a surface to see if it leaves a mark. All of these techniques will let you know if you should take your gold to a jewelry store in South Hempstead, NY and attempt to sell it.
Look for Hallmarks
Most solid-gold jewelry will come with something called a hallmark which can identify multiple characteristics about the gold: the manufacturer, the year the jewelry was made, and the purity of the gold’s karat. If, when examining your gold, you find one of these hallmarks, you can assume that your jewelry is real gold. However, these hallmarks can also hint at how much your gold is worth. For example, a letter of the alphabet can hint at how old it is. The letter M signifies that the jewelry was made in the year 2011.
While any jewelry store in South Hempstead, NY would be able to look at the hallmarks on your ring and understand them instantly, it may be harder to know what the random numbers and marks mean if you’ve never inspected gold before. When looking for your ring’s karat, you may see a large number, ranging from 250 to 999. The lower the number, the lower the karats of gold in the ring; however, the numbers indicate exactly how many karats of gold are in the item of jewelry. A ring with a 250 hallmark has around 6 karats of gold while a ring with a 999 hallmark has 24 karats of gold. The karat identifies exactly how pure the gold is: a 6 karat is around twenty-five percent gold while a 24 karat is ninety-nine percent or higher. These hallmarks not only prove that the jewelry is real gold but also can help you determine how much you can sell gold for in Nassau County.
The Magnet Test
To use a magnet to check the purity of your gold jewelry, you will need a magnet more powerful than your average fridge magnet. While many metals are magnetic, gold is not. If you hold your gold-appearing jewelry up to a strong magnet and the magnet attracts it, then you may be holding a gold-plated item rather than pure gold.
Does the Jewelry Change the Color of Your Skin
Most people who have ever worn jewelry have probably had a ring change the color of their skin a little. You can test your gold jewelry by holding it between your hands for a while to see if your skin changes colors. As the metal mixes with the sweat on your skin, cheap jewelry can turn it a blue or green color. If the jewelry does not change the color of your skin at all, then you should take it to a jewelry store in Nassau County where you can sell gold since it may be real gold.
Check for Color Impurities
If you have an old piece of jewelry, you should inspect it for any places where the gold color may have worn off. If the jewelry is gold-plated, the gold may have started to chip in places. If you find any spots that are black where the gold has peeled off, then the jewelry unfortunately will not be worth much and may better belong in the garbage.
Gold Is Dense
Another way to check whether or not an item of jewelry is gold is to place it in water. Real gold is denser than fake gold, so your gold ring should sink right to the bottom of the glass while imitation gold may float at the top. If your gold sinks, dry it off before taking it to a jewelry store in South Hempstead, NY to sell it.
Scrape it Against an Unglazed Surface
The final way to test if you have real or fools gold is to scrape the jewelry against an unglazed ceramic surface. As you continue to scrape the gold against the surface, it will eventually start to leave a mark. If the mark left behind is black, then you are holding imitation gold. However, if the mark left behind is as gold as the jewelry, then you are holding real gold.
After you have determined that your jewelry is real gold, you can take it to a jewelry store in Nassau County where you can sell gold. At Roma Jewelry, we have fifteen years of experience buying and selling gold so we can ensure that you will get the best prices for your old jewelry. To learn more about our gold selling practices, you can browse our website or call us at 516-795-8843 today.