I need a reliable and affordable gold testing kit, suggestions?

[yy4me]

I used to use just nitric acid but that is long gone. I need to be able to judge Karat as well as tell if the item is gold.

Would appreciate any leads, I am a uncomfortable buying one of the kits that may not be any good.

Must get prepared for my e-bay venture. It is now delayed again because my granddaughter dropped a bottle of water on my digital camera. It is now toast.

[Vinca]

1. I use a little kit I bought off ebay. It has different bottles of acid

to test for 10, 14, 18K gold, platinum and silver. It's fairly accurate, but if I have something I think might be particularly valuable I usually take it to the jeweler for a second opinion.

[yy4me]

2. Off I go to ebay to see if I can find one. Remember the name?

What you describe is just what I want.

[Vinca]

3. No . . . sorry. I bought it a long time ago.

[yy4me]

4. I saw several on ebay last night. One comes with a gram scale,

stone and all the acids. The other is the same except no scale. Since I sold my scale when we closed the shop, I think I'll get this kit. I've got stuff I need to test before I sell it, plus some junk I need to ID.

Thanks for your suggestion. It never occurred to me to check ebay.

[Vinca]

5. I check ebay first for almost everything.

We saved $100 on a manual my husband has to buy annually for his business. I have no idea how the person happened to have them to sell, but it made my day. (That said, beware the Braun electric toothbrush refills . . . fake, fake, fake and they fall apart after a couple of uses.)

[grasswire]

6. may I ask how much one of these kits costs?

Do you take a little scraping? How does it work?

I have this crazy piece from an estate that is covered with many pieces of vintage costume jewelry. If I could test for gold, I'd get some traction, maybe.

[Paper Roses]

7. I bought the kit with scale, 6 solutions and stone from an ebay

seller for about $40.00. There are cheaper kits with just the acid but I needed the scale so I bought the most complete unit. I will say that the instructions left a little to be desired and the seller did not respond to my e-mailed question about how to test for platinum. The instructions could be much better. I would still buy the whole kit but perhaps after contacting the seller to make sure I understand the instructions.

You rub the item to be tested on the stone and drop the acid on the piece. Look for the mark to turn a particular color or disappear. I have not used it yet. I must sit down and Google around and see if I can find clearer instructions.

If I can find the name of the ebay seller, I will send it to you. I think the value is there at $40.00, just a case of the how-to to figure out the results. Are you the person with the chunk of stuff with the jewelry embedded bought at a yard sale for $1.00? What a fun project that would be!

Found it:
http://cgi.ebay.com/GOLD-TESTING-KIT-PLUS-ONE-PROFESSIONAL-DIGITAL-SCALE_W0QQitemZ140343981135QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item20ad27344f&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Good luck.