How to Test Silver and Gold at Home - Specific Gravity Test

For a more accurate test, the water should be cold. Ideally 4 C or 39 F. However any temperature below 50 F or even 60 F will be as accurate as the 0.01 g scale. Put an ice cube in the water; that will be near perfect.

The specific gravity for 22k gold with copper alloy is 17.6.

Thank you for this video.. tested a silver bar i was a little wary of... 10.44 ... right on & great video. Thank you!

Amazing! I tested my Chinese silver bar and read 10.5 .. Thank you!

This is interesting. I want to use this for jewelry, but I feel like there are so many variables, such as air bubbles trapped in the items which would throw it off dramatically and hollow pieces. Solder might also be a problem too. Has anyone tried this with jewelry and had success? Mostly, I just wanna know something is gold or silver plated, without scratching it down and reducing the value.

Very cool. I’m going to test a metal bar I found on the beach a while back. Could you just tare the scale with the string in water then skip the subtraction step?

I think the accepted tolerance for the SG test is +/- 1%(0.01). It would be greater for kitchen table testing. So for 10.49 value, the tolerance and range is 0.1 and (10.385 -10.59) for 0.999 silver. Now, the range even for the 0.90 silver is between 10.21 - 10.41. So the values overlaps even between 0.999 silver and 0.90 silver. It means that the SG test is not precise enough to distinguish between 0.999, 0.925 or 0.90 silvers. I'm sure with highly sensitive lab scales and other more controlled and better designed test, the SG test would be more precise and able to distinguish between 0.999 and other purity silver. As such the kitchen table test can only say that you have ''some kinda'' silver with approximate silver content between so and so purities, or get this . . . ''some kinda'' copper/lead alloyed to 10.49 g/cm3.

Will this work for any small silver items? Like a Brooch or ring?

best explanation. u r the best man

How to detect or any chemicle test to detect cadmium melted mixed with pure silver?

Thanks for making this video

In your video you stated that +/- 0.2 was an acceptable variance for specific grav testing of silver. But that would put it below Sterling or 90% Ag. Your acceptable range would be 10.29 to 10.69? And should the water be distilled?

Whaoooooo, thank you , you gave great knowledge

Hey bro love your shows is it possible to tell me if Gorham sterling is real silver just bought 600 oz of silverware with this marking I want to make sure thanks

Cool video. Was hoping to see the 90% silver at the end.

If you are holding the weight of coin with the peice of string ...... Wouldnt it be weighing slightly less than true weight???

Alternatively: weigh the coin first. If you have a measured mL beaker place the coin in the water to measure how much water is displaced. The level will rise. This gives the volume of the coin. Divide the weight by volume to get specific gravity. Excellent video. Thank you.

cool video thanks for the info.

wait what the heck, how is the scale changing if the weight of the silver is being held by the string

Great vid! Quick q- why not tare the scale with the string dipped in?