Comments on: 14k Gold’s Magnetic Properties?

By: WP Robot Wordpress Plugin

WP Robot Wordpress Plugin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:42:12 +0000

First of all, a rare earth magnet is no different than any other type of magnet. to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, “a magnet is a magnet is a magnet.” As to its ability to differentiate between different percentages of gold, that’s absurd. If a magnet attracts a piece of metal, the metal must contain iron. There are a few other elements that exhibit ferromagnetic properties but to a very small degree. I’m not a jeweler, but I seem to recall being told that silver is usually the metal alloyed with gold in making jewelry. Whatever they do use, the difference in the melting points of gold and iron make an amalgam of the two unlikely if not impossible. The idiot who told your customer a magnet can differentiate between 10 and 14 K gold is just that: an idiot.

By: patil.ch

patil.ch — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:36:27 +0000

it could depend on what metals are added to the gold to make it stronger and less able to bend. I have a 9K gold chain that is attracted to a neodymium magnet.

By: Bella

Bella — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:57:25 +0000

Pure gold is not magnetic. That is, it doesn’t form a magnet on its own. If you put it in a magnetic field it will magnetize a tiny bit, but only so long as it’s in the field.
There are alloys of gold, for example gold with more than about 20% of the atoms replaced by iron, which do magnetize on their own, at least when they are very cold.
In the karat system, pure gold is expressed as “24 karats fine” (24K). (Pure gold in commercial practice is 99.95 to fine, but is nominally considered 100%.) The gold content of any gold article depends on the proportion of’ pure gold it contains.
The most popular jewelry golds in the United States are:
24 K 100% gold (99.95 %)
18 K 18/24ths or 75% gold
14 K 14/24ths or 58.33% gold
10 K 10/24ths or 41.67% gold
The most common alloying elements used in the United States are silver, copper, nickel and zinc. I found nothing about rare earth magnets being used to test the purity of gold. I suspect the person doing the “testing” may be making money for a bogus test.