QuestionHi Steven,
I recently purchased the contents of a shop through the estate of a jewelry store owner. As you can imagine, there's more stuff than I could possibly ever know what to do with. I have some questions as I sort of out the things I wish to keep.
- Firstly, does a real gem cabochon ever have paint on the back? There's lots of various pieces of many varieties, shapes, etc. Usually it's gold colored paint on the back, but sometimes silver. Are these likely to be actual gems or simply glass in this case? There's no setting, just some loose "gems" with paint on the back.
- Can you recommend a good website or other source for identifying gemstones? Some identification should be pretty straightforward, but is there a way for an untrained eye (mine) to distinguish a yellow sapphire from citrine, for example? ... or to distinguish gems and semi precious gems from glass?
- And while I'm asking ... Steven, is there any way to tell if something is gold if there's no marking on it? There are scads of jump rings and pieces of chains, etc.
Thanks so much for your time and sharing your expertise. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Barb
AnswerHello,
Generally painted stones are glass, much like rhinestones. To tell other stones you would need to have a gemologist do refractive index tests. However most could be identified just by looking at them. You would have to find someone who specializes in colored gem stones.
I could do it if you were here, and I know other people here. I would not know who to send you to where you are.
As to the gold you would need some emery paper (sand paper 220 grit)
You would need a small bottle of nitric acid and a know gold sample to scratch onto the sand paper then scratch the unknown next to it. Then
with a small glass rod to smear a small amount of acid across both scratch marks then watch how they dissolve.
Or you would need to purchase a electronic gold testing unit that jewelers use to test with.
I hope this helps you.
Regards,
Steven D.Covey
