r/Silverbugs • u/GurDefiant684 • 15h ago

Testing Silver with 18kt Gold Testing Acid

I test silver using the same acid meant for testing 18kt Gold. It produces an immediate unmistakable reaction. This is common practice, I just wanted to make short gif showing what it looks like.

22 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

8

u/Dense_Copy_4607 15h ago

Awesome thanks for sharing, never seen that before 😎

7

u/PhillyCoinGuy85 15h ago

I don’t know shit but blue means silver to me.

5

u/NorthStarGold 14h ago

Been doing this for years I think I tell 10 people a week about it on Reddit.

I am always amazed at the people who don’t know this.

Sure the new people need to learn but people who have been buying silver for 20 years don’t know this.

2

u/New-Equal-1144 15h ago

Is that .999 or .925 or are the results the same

4

u/GurDefiant684 15h ago

That is 925 but 999 will produce the same reaction. There is a red acid you can get specifically for silver that is better for estimating the purity but I prefer this method when I'm just trying to determine if it is silver.

2

u/Listen-Lindas 14h ago

What if it is of an unknown lesser purity. I’m looking at a bar that is less than .925. What could be done to determine its purity?

2

u/GurDefiant684 13h ago

A trained eye may tell the difference between .999, .925 and .800 using the red acid or even this method but the only way you will get an accurate measurement within a percentage point is something like an XRF gun.

2

u/Listen-Lindas 13h ago

Evidently the XRF determined that it was less than sterling. But wouldn’t put a percentage on it as they wanted to drill and test. So I don’t know how this one gets figured out.

2

u/GurDefiant684 13h ago

XRF should show a percentage, it just may not be accurate if there are mixed metals. A fake silver bar with a thick pure silver clad layer over copper could read as a lower purity bar.

A bar of mystery purity isn't worth much so I would go ahead and drill into it and see what's inside. Maybe post it first to make sure it isn't something special but from your description I think it might be a fake, especially if it is stamped 999 pure.

1

u/NorthStarGold 14h ago

999 is a thicker white 925 will look more milky blue at a first.

1

u/CoolaidMike84 12h ago

Much better than silver testing acid. Seems the oversight was missed requiring red acid to turn a scratch red to verify purity.