Two antique 9ct piece failed acid test-shall I be worried?

Thank you!

 

That's not the general usage - solid gold is normally an item made exclusively of gold of any assayable carat. This is opposed to plated, rolled, filled, and in some purposes hollow. Pure gold is perhaps the term you were thinking of?

 

XRF machines are not 100% accurate - they can work on some plated items but are noted as not being accurate on rolled, cased, filled and hge. It depends on the model but many will only determine plated for thinly electroplated items.

Generally I would trust an experienced pawn broker with an acid bottle as their livelihood depends on getting this kind of thing right.

Also some antique gold did not have the same formula of alloys which are generally accepted today, which can skew results. It's not a black and white area.

 

Yeah I agree, the chance of both chains from professional sellers went wrong is kinda low(one told me she had it acid tested twice and XRF once at a jeweler, the other has been selling on ebay for ten years and has thousands of good reviews), and I got both of them acid tested only, they simply told me they thought it's plated but I didn't see how the test actually went through apart from the blackening on my link, I am suspecting the actually purity getting a bit lower than modern standard. And prawbrokers may simply unwilling to accept any gold that they are not confident with,guess they aren't 100% sure either!

As for XRF, I guess on jewelry you usually won't get a really thick plating on those delicate links and joints so after polishing a bit off the result should be accurate, otherwise the ultimate way to determine the authenticity is to cut through the whole thing which is unacceptable for jewelry collector and dealer.

Thank you for your advice

 

And I myself have them checked under loupe, they all has signs of wear and repair all over the place but no typical features of gold plated or rolled gold item fading and corroding, which are expected to be found on plated item that undergoes years of wearing

 

If they are assayed, there is only a very narrow margin which acid testing won't pick up on. If it tests lower than that margin, the assayer won't put his stamp on it.

 

Update: today I brought both to several jewelers and had them KEE and XRF tested, the one I just bought failed both, but the long guard chain I bought few months ago passed perfectly, and I received compliments for that beautiful chain from the gentlemen who offered their XRF gun to me, but when they handled another one they immediatelt told me that one was rubbish and just return it asap haha. Fortunatley the seller is a kind lady and accepted return request quickly, said she's going to confront her dealer on Monday.

But don't forget the long guard chain proved innocent by XRF gun got refused by pawnbrokers twice, I asked if they saw green bubbles or something, they simply told me it didn't react as 9ct gold was expected to do. Strange still!

 

I truly HATE scratch testing
Specially when an idiot doe's that on a perfect piece that IS FULLY Hallmarked (French boar's head.)

 

Exactly! It is a serious crime against beauty.

 

Filing makes me crazy! I've found perfectly good gold filled pieces where someone files across the front to test it - really? They couldn't file on the back where it wouldn't be so obvious?

 

Update: I finally find out why the solid gold chain was rejected by pawnbroker-it's actually not 100% solid 9ct gold, the dog clip is rolled gold as today I tested it using newly arrived acid tester. That was tough- usually you only get real clasp with fake chain! But this one is the opposite. Slightly disappointed but overall no big problem.

 

A pic of this chain. The gold on the clip was killed by acid but looks not too bad