How can you tell Jewelry before 1906? (Stamping date)

According to Google, "United States enacted the Gold and Silver Stamping Act in 1906." I'm thinking maybe Europe and the rest of the world did it at other times.

How can you tell Jewelry before 1906 as far as tell tale signs? Are there any good resources like websites for this?

 

Are you thinking a precious metal stamp would help?Since there is no requirement to mark precious metal objects in the USA,would need to identify a maker's mark.But that would only give a timeline the company operated.

 

I am just looking at which items may pass a gold test, without having to deface it with acids.

I really hate when people destroy a perfectly good piece of jewelry with gold testing acid when electronic testing could tell.

Just trying to get more information to avoid doing that.

 

Thing is the cheap electronic testers are not reliable and will measure gold plate as gold as well, and XRF guns are £10k plus! Careful use of acids does minimal harm and are fairly accurate.

 

The piece is scratched on a testing stone. Acid doesn't go anywhere near the piece unless the whole thing is going into the melting pot if it's gold. Good Victorian gold-filled can fool most tests, including the scratch test, so part of it is just good eyeballs. Experience. Even that isn't fool-proof.

 

Yes, I really did not want to hear an anti this or anti that. I was looking for a description of pre-1906 jewelry. I know there are so hot-button topics, electronic gold testing being one of them, lol.

 

Look at this site might help.... https://www.langantiques.com/university/aesthetic-period-1885-1901/

 

Sounds good in practice, but I've seen lots of nice thick gold plated jewelry with nice stones ruined by careless people just looking for gold.

 

That's where experience comes in. I start with a magnet and go from there if I can't just eyeball it.

Then you get the idjuts I used to see at local sales who went around louping anything gold-colored, including a pile of stuff I could tell was modern costume from six feet out. Heaven only knows what they did to whatever they bought.

 

OH MY!!!! That Rene Lalique Pendant is JUST SO SCRUMDELICIOUS, on the Langantiques site !!!!!

 

I'd cheerfully take one. Or two. Or 12. His glassware doesn't excite me, but those jewels... yes please.

 

People are doing their best to help. You get what you get, here on antiquers.

That is 135,000 years, give or take, and it covers every continent except for Antarctica. So impossible to answer.
Maybe you could be more specific, for instance: "How do I recognize Aesthetic period jewellery?" Replies to that could fill a few pages.

Another could have been: "How do I minimize making mistakes when trying to buy gold jewellery?"
But I think that question has pretty much been answered by the excellent replies above.
As @evelyb30 said, you never put the acid on jewellery, you rub an inconspicuous part of the jewel on a testing stone and place the acid on the rub line on the stone. As she also said, even that isn't 100% proof, but it is a start.

Other than that, study jewellery history. The top four threads of the jewelry forum contain links and other resources:
https://www.antiquers.com/forums/jewelry.20/

Pre-1906, a 130,000 yrs old Neanderthal eagle talon necklace found in Croatia:

 

Look at some of the pages on this site, you will find examples of different styles plus a section on findings (the hardware, like clasps, hinges and pin backs). Very often the findings can really help date a piece.

https://www.morninggloryantiques.com/

 

There's very recent jeweller, gold, not marked in any way.

 

Morning Glory is also in Davey's 'Jewelry ID Library' thread, one of the top four threads of the jewelry forum I mentioned.
If Antiquebytes looks at those four threads, he'll find a lot of information on antique jewellery.

 

It's all about the context of the question. I was asking about gold markings and so how to distinguish antique jewelry based on that.

I do appreciate all the answers, sometimes even ones I don't put "like" next to.

 

You also asked this:

Which gave the impression that your question was actually intended to be much more general, because telltale signs are not specifically gold marks but a much broader aspect. So I gave you an answer to that very general question.

I also told you that the top four threads of the jewelry forum contain links and other resources. If you aren't interested in such information, that's fine, others who read this thread may find them useful.

It seems that you are not happy with any of the replies so far. In which case you could ask yourself: "Could I rephrase my question instead of objecting to replies which are relevant to what I asked."

 

Please don't accuse people of intentions they do not have.

 

If you read what I wrote, you will see that I didn't accuse you of any intentions, whether you have them or not.
Frankly I haven't given your intentions a moment's thought, other than, what do you want to know.

So, have you thought of what you actually want to know yet? Like a period? Do you just want US jewellery?
Please explain what you want, because so far it seems you haven't been happy with any of the replies, no matter what people said. Give people some clue so they know how to help you.

 

Thanks. The links were good enough. I never really looked at jewelry that was clearly identified as being before 1906.