What Do Real Gold Look Like

Fool s gold is glittery and bright but if you shade it in your hand it will become dull and drab looking.

What do real gold look like.

If you search online some will say that real gold tarnishes while others will say that real gold does not tarnish. Gold tarnishing is the slight corrosion of the gold surface and is evident as a dark discoloration of the gold item also called a tarnish film. But real gold stays bright even when out of direct sunlight and though soft does not fall apart when you touch it like fool s gold can. Gold can look many different ways in nature but it is important to know the difference between gold and the other minerals.

Look at how the gold reflects light. Fool s gold tends to be bright and shiny much shinier than actual gold. Real gold weighs about 1 5 times more than fool s gold or iron pyrite. Once you have seen a few pictures of real gold it is pretty easy to distinguish from the other stuff.

Check out some of the pictures throughout our website of the various gold nuggets and gold specimens. In fact the piece with gold colored particles inside may even be lighter than your other piece of quartz if the gold is not real. Fool s gold is made up of crystals and has sharp edges while real gold is a metal with a smoother texture and rounder edges. Most native gold is alloyed with silver and if the silver content is high enough the specimen will have a whitish yellow color.

Gold ore can look like quartz with streaks or spotty areas of gold. You can also try holding a strong magnet like the kind you can find at hardware stores up to the metal to see if it sticks to it. The environmental protection agency says that gold is commonly alloyed with silver and other metals. If you look closely at the piece and see that its structure consists of what looks like small and sharp cubes then it is fool s gold.

Most specimens of pyrite found in nature will have at least some tarnish on their surface. So indicators of the presence of sulfides like arsenic copper iron and silver may also appear within gold ore. Fool s gold can be mistaken for placer gold gold found as rounded or flat nuggets in dry and wet stream beds and rivers or creeks because they both look golden. To tell if gold is real try dropping it into a glass of water.

Gold has a golden to yellow color. If it sticks it probably isn t real gold since gold isn t magnetic. Fool s gold and other minerals that look like gold will not produce a weight difference between the pieces of quartz. Real gold will still maintain a diluted glow though not as bright as it would be if in full sunlight.