I just found some old jewelry in a box. Most of it are “gold” chains. The reason I question if it’s gold is it doesn’t have a karat mark (10K or 14K) and it is very shiny and has a slight coppery sheen to it so I suspect that it is gold-plated. Is that common and is there an easy way to tell without taking it to a jeweler?
Without any kinds of marks, it’s probably just plated. I’ve bought perhaps 50,000 chains in the last few years. Especially the last two with gold so high. I’d say that 99%of all unmarked chains are plated.
Very common to find these. As a side note, about 1% of chains that are marked are fake. The markings are usually crude. Also, there is NO marking, usually, on the clasp).
One sure sign that a given piece is not precious metal is if it will stick to a magnet. Put the chain down on a flat surface, and slide the magnet near to it. (that way, gravity is not involved.) If the chain is drawn to the magnet, then it may be gold-plated, but it has ferrous metal underneath.
Because gold is so soft, the clasp will sometimes have more base metal in the alloy, so test the chain part away from the clasp.
Silver is usually plated over copper or brass, so this won’t work with white metal. However, i have never seen silver plate on jewelry so thick that it didn’t wear off quickly. You can nick it with a knife and see the yellow base metal underneath. The exception is silver plated housewares like cutlery and tea sets – they’re plated much more thickly.
Makers of gold and silver jewelry all have hallmarks (little pictures, usually) that they put on everything they make, to protect their market from makers of cheap plate who compete. There is no reason for them *not * to mark precious metal jewelry, so it’s extremely unlikely that you will ever find unmarked gold or silver, even from other nations.
Gold filled is a term they often use that’s more than plating. It sounds like the thing is filled with gold but it is gold “filled” with something else, actually gold applied on top of something else.