š How to Verify Real Gold
When it comes to purchasing precious metals for your home portfolio, knowing how to tell if gold is real is essential. The market is unfortunately filled with fake items, and unscrupulous sellers often make it difficult to distinguish authentic bullion from counterfeit pieces. This risk exists for everything from coins and bars to Jewellery.
To avoid spending your money on a worthless item, you must always prioritize authenticity and buying from a reputable dealer like BullionByPost. I’ve personally seen the costly mistakes made when individuals neglect to check the source of their gold. Real gold has unique propertiesāsuch as a specific weightāthat differentiate it from silver or other base metals often used in fakes.
To assure you are buying real gold, dealers need to employ accurate tests. While some tests can be done yourself at home, like specific gravity tests, the most reliable methods are utilized after gold has been manufactured. A highly sought culture of trust is built when dealers consistently meet LBMA-approved refiners targets.
We recommend you save yourself the hassle and risk by solely dealing with those who rigorously test every single piece. For instance, when we buy second-hand items back from a private customer, we thoroughly test them to ensure their purity. Knowing the history and verification process of your valuable metal is the best defense against counterfeit gold.
1ļøā£ Test Its Size and Weight
Verifying Gold Through Physical Specifications
A fundamental method to test the authenticity of your bullion is to check its physical properties, primarily its size and weight. Because gold is the densest one of all stable metals on planet Earth, it’s incredibly hard to replicate.
This density is the point that makes fake gold coins and bars so easily identifiable. For one thing, a fake coin’s weight will be noticeably lighter than a real one of the same diameter and thickness, because any other metal used to copy it would have to be thicker or wider to match the correct weight, giving itself away instantly.
This simple fact applies primarily to bullion coins and bars which are set to certain specificationsāa gold ounce Britannia, for example, has a specified diameter and weight.
Knowing the specified weight for a coin like the Britannia (or any other) is your reference. If you take a potential fake and weigh it against a real one, and the fake is much less than the known weight, it’s more than likely a fake.
Furthermore, if a suspect coin’s diameter or thickness doesn’t allow for the correct weight, it’s certainly suspect. I always say that if a coin feels compact but is significantly lighter, you can identify it as a fake straight away.
While it’s relatively easy to replicate the visual look of a gold coin, replicate its specific weight and size simultaneously is extremely hard and this test is often all you used to need.
2ļøā£ Magnet Test
The Magnet Test for Gold
One of the most straightforward tests you can perform right at home requires minimal equipment: a strong magnet. This is an important initial method for testing if your gold is real. Pure gold is not magnetic.
Therefore, if you try to use the magnet on your bar or coin, and it sticks, you can be sure the item is a fake. It’s easy because this test works on the simple findings that several other metals are magnetic, and if your gold contains one of these metals, the magnet will pick it up.
We recommend you take care, however, as this check only helps identify if other metals are presentāit could not tell you the purity of the gold itself.
A piece of gold jewellery or a lower-purity coin like a Sovereign (916.7 purity) is not pure gold (999.9), but an alloy that contains other metals, and those metals are not magnetic, so the item will pass the test even if it’s not pure gold.
While several tests are needed for absolute purity confirmation, the magnet test is a good starting guide.
For instance, a gold coin (or bar) that is a fake will almost always be made from other magnetic metals to make them cheaper. So, if you try the magnet on your bullion coin or bar and it is magnetic, you will know itās not gold at all.
This test is generally more useful for bullion coins and bars than for jewellery because jewellery is mentioned to contain an alloy for strength. If your item is magnetic, it’s well a fakeāa simple, easy check from your home.
3ļøā£ Testing Gold by Its Sound
Listening for the Gold Ping Test
Another often-overlooked test to tell if your gold coin is real is by listening to the sound it makes when struck. This method, sometimes called the āping test,ā highlights a key difference between precious metals and non-precious metals.
To perform this, balance the coin gently on one finger and give it a light tapping or very gentle strike. A pure gold coin is known to make a long, high-pitched ringing sound, often described as a clear āping.ā
Conversely, when a fake coin is struck, the sound will be shorter and much duller because it’s typically made of a base metal. This is an obvious giveaway, as the ringing from other metals used in fakes will not last as long as that produced by gold.
The simple quality of the sound lets you tell if the coin is pure gold or a less dense metal. I’ve personally used this method many timesāthe bright, sustained ringing of a genuine gold piece is unmistakable.
4ļøā£ Ceramic Test
The Unglazed Ceramic Plate Test
Here is another quick and uncomplicated way to test your gold: the ceramic test.
This is a test you can do at home with minimal fuss. Just draw your gold across an unglazed ceramic plate with a little pressure. This simple dragging technique works because the soft nature of real gold means a trace amount is left behind.
If you can see a gold mark on the ceramic once youāve done this, then the gold is real. However, if the mark is black, then it is fake.
This ceramic plate test is a fantastic indicator to distinguish your gold from a fake item, as the physical reaction is obvious. I always keep a small unglazed ceramic tile handy because it’s so reliable for an initial screen.
5ļøā£ Nitric Acid Test
The Gold Purity Test Using Nitric Acid
Moving on from the simple surface checks, the Nitric Acid Test is a more advanced step, yet it is the least straightforward of these tests, primarily because you risk damaging your metal unless it’s pure gold.
The premise behind this test is that gold is resistant to oxidation and corrosion, so pure gold will not be affected by the acid.
This chemical resistance is one of the unique properties that gold is known for, and the test uses different strengths of acid as a precise method to test different carats.
Iāve personally observed that for those less experienced, the risk of damaging a valuable piece means this is often best left to a dealer.
The goal is to match the itemās reaction to the acid’s strength. Gold that doesnāt react to the acid is at least as pure as the carat rating suggested, if not higher.
Conversely, if you apply acid marked for 22 carat gold to your 24 carat bar, you know that your gold is at best 22 carat gold, and maybe not gold at all.
This test is a definitive measure against fake metal.
While there are plenty of other ways to tell if your gold is real, such as the soft nature of 24 carat gold which means that your teeth would leave slight marks if biting down on gold (an old favourite that is not the safest or most accurate method and we certainly wouldnāt recommend it), acid testing offers a scientific way to gauge the content.
Beyond physical checks, you might also notice that in the case of jewellery, fake gold leaves a mark on your skin the longer you wear itāa sure sign that base metals are present.
But indeed, the best way to know if your gold is real is to leave yourself with no doubt in the first place, by buying from a reputable dealer such as BullionByPost.
We donāt rely on minimal at-home checks; we buy our gold from LBMA-approved refiners, or in the case of second-hand items being bought back from customers, we test them using an XRF machine.
These machines let us check if a metal is real and how pure it is, quickly and without damaging it. The high-tech XRF machine eliminates the risk of permanent damage associated with acid and provides a definitive answer for every single item, whether itās a bar or a piece of jewellery.
This technology is far better than any test I could perform at home with a nitric acid kit.