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Test for Platinum

Micheal_R

Micheal_R

Moderator
Staff member
I went down to our drowned town today.. and all in all, had a pretty good day. The lake is coming up .... so I have to get the detecting in while I can. I found a couple of new foundations and started to slowly work around the nails and debris.

I did manage 8 pennies, one large cent, a silver dime, a 1931 Chauffeurs badge, a brooch and what I am reasonably certain is part of a platinum watch fob. It has the clip on it and then 2 3/4 inches of chain.. It has that dusky grey [gray?] look that Pt can have. It is very heavy... weighing in at a substantial 17.5 grams. There is no Pt marking.... but each link and the clasp have a design on them. Unfortunately, I have no camera at the moment [my wife took it with her when she went to VI to see our daughter].. two more weeks and I will be able to post some shots.

It gives a nice solid, fairly high pitched tone on the Excal...

It is definitely not silver... maybe white gold [although that is not too likely .. I have some white gold and this looks entirely different],... which pretty much leaves Platinum, I think.

This area in which it was found is all old goodies.. The town was drowned in 1967... and I have found a lot of older silver there.

So... anyone here have any ideas for a Pt test?

Many thanks

Micheal
 
Hmmm.....the "high Pitch" part sounds silvery...I guess it could be plat depending on the size of it...plat seems to resemble the same tones gold makes for something of the same size. Thats all the experience I got..without an XRF Spectrometer.
good luck!
Mud
 
But two thing tend to dissuade me on the silver ... First is, it was not as high as ... say silver dime or silver quarter high... It was lower than that. And the colour was wrong... every silver item I have found there has been almost black... well dark anyway.

Also, the weight is far too high for a silver chain.

But many thanks anyway

Fair winds

Micheal
 
Silver starts out a....., well, Silver color before degrading in a salt environment to the dark gray you refer to. Perhaps its a fairly recent drop?

I don t know the Excal at all but silver and platinum are seperated by half the scale in the Safari. Like 39 for silver and 14-16 for Platinum.
 
If you have some accurate scales you can do a test to determine its specific gravity. There are plenty of youtube or web sites showing how its done. Then match the specific gravity of the item to this list: http://www.hauserandmiller.com/reference/melting.html. Platinum has a much larger SG then silver or gold so it should be fairly obvious what sort of metal it is.
 
I tried my platinum on 5 different machines...comes up the same on all...right in the middle of the gold range.
 
It also was very close to the 1931 Chauffeurs Badge. That does not necessarily predispose it to that age.... but this old drowned townsite does not produce modern coins... only older

Fair winds

Micheal
 
Mikie said:
It also was very close to the 1931 Chauffeurs Badge. That does not necessarily predispose it to that age.... but this old drowned townsite does not produce modern coins... only older

Fair winds

Micheal
Click to expand...

Mickie, I have an acid test kit that includes an bottle of acid for platinum.

Ya can send it to me if Ya like!!:biggrin:

Regards,

Cupajo
 
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I'd go with IslandPaddler's idea. Any jewelry or 'we buy gold' store can test for it. I also have one of the simple acids kits for PM's. I think I paid about $15-20- its worth having if you find a lot of PM's.
 
You can also heat it up with a propane torch...it should NOT discolor if its Plat...If its Stainless steel it will...just looked this up on the internet and tried it out myself on a plat ring and a SS washer. (wait until it cools off before you grab a hold!):rofl:
Mud
 
And theres always that magnet test to distinguish it from steel...............................:detecting:
 
mudpuppy is right heat it with a touch don't worry about it melting ,if it is PT. you can't get it hot enough to melt 3200 degree . It will get white hot and won't melt. if it melts it's not PT .
 
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Wadermike, you have this backwards most stainless steels are Magnetic. There is 3000 type of Stainless steel and 80 % are Magnetic.
 
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