How To Recognize Fake Sterling Silver

Nowadays with the new technology and the bad behavior of people it’s easy to being deceived about quality of the good you buy.
Especially about gems and precious metals. 
Today we will see five ways totally free to recognize at 90% if the silver piece you want to buy is true or fake. 
They need some material, to get comparison.
We will also speak about one method which is very expensive and ask a lot of time, space and precaution. 
With those technics we will show you, the best is to combine at least 3 of them to be almost certain that your piece is true silver. 
Don’t forget to first try to find a stamp as “S925” or “925” “990” or “999” on it. 

1 Acid

Using Acid is a one way to find if your coin, bullion, or jewelry piece is real silver or not. 
But this method is expensive, because buy the necessary material is not cheap at all. 

To use the acid you need some protections as gloves and glasses in case or you do some bad manipulation. 

This technique needs a close room, and a touchstone to grate some metal and test it.
Or you can leave a droplet on the piece itself, but it can alter your object. 

When the acid do his work, the metal turns to black if it’s true massive silver.
But we will not detailed this method in here. 

2 The Ping Test

The ping test is an easy technic to recognize if silver is truc or not. 
All you need is or another silver piece or, at least a pencil.
The method is pretty simple you hold the piece in balance on the top of your finger and you hit it gently with with the other one you have to get a clear and long sound.
If you don’t have another coin with you, it’s possible to use a pencil to hit it gently also. 
Sometimes your ear is not so much trained to know if the sound is the good one or not. 
That’s why we propose to you a free app for your phone that you can find here. 
It’s called Precious Coins Tester and you will like it for sure. 
It will help you to know if the sound is right or not. 
But once more this way is not a 100% sure to be certain if the piece you want to buy is in silver or not. 

3 The magnet method

Silver, like most precious metals such as gold and copper, is nonmagnetic.
Take a few magnets and test if they stick to your object.
“Unlike iron, nickel, cobalt, and other metals, silver is not obviously magnetic and exhibits relatively weak magnetic effects,” adds Martin.
“Your magnet has a ferromagnetic core and is not silver if it attaches strongly to the object.”
Other metals are commonly used to make fake silver or silver-plated products.
This is a simple test that will tell you whether your item is true silver or not.
The best way is to compare with another piece in iron for example. 
Tilt your object at about 45°, put your magnet on it and let it slide.
If you do it on a piece of paper, you see the gravity and the speed in which the magnet is going down. 
On  Silver it has to be  slower. 
This is the principle of the magnetic brake.
On a coin or a small piece of jewelry it will be harder to do this test. 
But don’t worry we will show you one very good way just now. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18RvoKLRMl8

4 The original

This method is very efficient on coins, but unfortunately, not that much for bullions and ingots. 

For example, you go to a market to get some coins. 
We strongly advise you to have with you one original coin that you are 100% certain it’s  in silver. 
And you just compare them with your fingers by touching them. 
Put them together, for the diameter and you will quickly feel and see. 
Put them side to side and see if there is a difference between them. Strangely this test is more precise than with a clipper, your fingers will feel a difference if there is one. 
Compare also the draws on it.
Don’t forget to check the slice, sometimes the true difference is here. 
Once you checked if size, width, and diameter are correct, you need a last thing to see if yes or not it’s good: a precision scale. 
You can find small and cheap very easily on internet on in physical shops. 
Take a look for see if the weight are the same. Then you just add one or two other test we are giving you here and can make a decision to buy it or not. 

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5 The ice cube test

This test will be good at home and especially for big pieces as a bullion or ingot. But not that efficient on simple coins. 
Take your ingot and put it in a plate. 
Then, take two ice cubes from your fridge and do this:
put one ice cube on the table to see how long it takes to melt.
And put the second on the ingot.
With the density of the precious metal the ice cube should melt very fast: around 3-4 mn to change in water when the other one will take more than ten to fifteen minutes. 

6 Hydrostatic weighing

For this test you will need some material and of course you will also need to be at home. 
1) a precision scale 
2) a water recipient
3) water in the recipient
4)fishing line or string
Firstable, weight your ingot alone and write the result on a paper. 
Then tie the ingot at each end.
Put the recipient and water on the scale and reset it to give you 0.0g . 
Put the tied ingot in the water but be careful: don’t touch the edge or the bottom. 
Then write again how much you get on your paper. 
So now divide the first  weight by the weight in the water.
Take this result, and compare it to the table of density of metals.
If you find for example 10.4/ 10.5/0r 10.6 and in the table is 10.5. So be sure that you have a real piece of Silver in your possession. 

None of these technics alone will make you sure and certain that is real silver.
Combine at least 3 technics together to be 100% sure of your choice. 

Conclusion:

We think now you can understand what you should to recognize true and fake silver. 

Try to test at least two combines methods. 

We have taken a lot of time to bring you the most comprehensive article on “how to recognize fake sterling silver”.

We hope you’ve enjoyed and appreciated learning more about this topic.

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