Gold Plated, Gold Filled or Solid? How to Tell if Gold Is Real or Plated

The quickest way to tell solid gold from plated gold is to read the marks and then look at the places where the piece wears. Solid gold carries a karat or fineness stamp (10K, 14K, 18K, 585, 750) and looks the same color all the way through, even on a clasp that has been opened ten thousand times. Plated and filled pieces often carry a giveaway mark such as GP, HGE, GF or RGP, and they show a different colored metal at the edges, the clasp and anywhere skin and fabric rub.

Marks can be faked and wear takes years to show, so the reliable answer comes from testing: an acid test on a small filed notch that reaches below the surface, an XRF reading, or a density check. Below are the three categories you are trying to separate, the marks that identify each, the tests that settle the question, and what each category is actually worth when it reaches a buyer’s scale.

Solid, filled and plated are three different things

People use “real gold” to mean anything from a 24K bar to a gold colored bracelet from a department store. In the trade there are three distinct categories, and they are defined by how much gold there is and where it sits.

• Solid gold is a gold alloy all the way through. A 14K ring is 58.5 percent gold at its surface and at its core. It can be hollow (many chains and hoops are tubes of solid gold alloy), but the metal itself is the same throughout.
• Gold filled is a base metal core, usually brass, with a thick layer of karat gold bonded to it by heat and pressure. Under the US Federal Trade Commission jewelry guides, a piece can only be called gold filled if the gold layer makes up at least one twentieth of the total metal weight.
• Gold plated is a base metal or silver item with a very thin coat of gold applied by electroplating. The FTC guides set a floor of 0.175 microns of fine gold for “gold electroplate” and 2.5 microns for “heavy gold electroplate.” A human hair is roughly 70 microns thick, which gives a sense of how little metal is involved.

There are close relatives of each. Rolled gold plate is made like gold filled but with a thinner layer, often marked 1/40. Vermeil is gold plating over sterling silver; the FTC guides call for at least 2.5 microns of gold of at least 10 karat. Ion plated or PVD gold is a gold colored coating on stainless steel, common on modern fashion jewelry and watch bracelets, and it often contains little or no gold at all.

The marks that tell you which one you have

Start with a 10x loupe and good light. Check the clasp, the tag next to the clasp, the inside of a ring, earring posts and the back of pendants. The table below lists the marks you will meet.

Read the whole mark, not only the number. “1/20 14K GF” contains the characters 14K, and people regularly see those three characters and stop reading. The fraction and the GF are the important part: they say the piece is mostly brass. A mark of “18K HGE” says the same thing about plating. The karat in those marks describes the quality of the thin layer, not the item.

A full guide to karat and fineness stamps, including British, Italian and Indian hallmarks, is in our post on how to read gold karat stamps.

What wear reveals

Plating wears through at predictable spots, and filled gold eventually does too, though it takes far longer. Look closely at these places:

• The edges of the clasp, the lever on a round bolt ring clasp and the hinge of a box clasp.
• The underside of a bracelet where it rests on a desk while you type.
• The high points of a signet ring face and the bottom of the band.
• Earring posts and the inside of hoops.
• Chain links where they rub against each other.

On a plated piece you will see a coppery, pinkish, silvery or grey metal showing through the yellow. Brass underneath gives a slightly greener, duller yellow that is easy to miss, so compare the worn spot with a protected area. Solid gold wears too, but it wears into more of the same color, because the metal under the surface is the same alloy.

A green or black ring on the skin is another clue. Copper rich base metals react with sweat once plating is breached. Low karat solid gold contains copper as well and can discolor skin in some people, so treat this as a hint rather than proof.

Home checks that help a little

None of these replaces a proper test, but they will sort out obvious costume pieces before you make a trip.

The magnet check

Gold, silver, copper and brass are not magnetic. If a strong magnet (a rare earth magnet from a hardware store, not a fridge magnet) snaps to the body of a piece, there is steel or iron in it and it is not solid gold. The reverse does not hold: no pull proves nothing, because brass, the most common base for plating, is also non magnetic. Expect a slight pull on clasps even on real gold chains, because bolt ring clasps and some box clasps contain a small steel coil.

The weight check

Solid gold is dense. A solid 14K rope chain feels noticeably heavy for its size, and a solid 18K band feels heavier than you expect. Plated brass feels lighter. The catch is that plenty of solid gold jewelry is hollow and feels light, and some fakes use tungsten, which is almost exactly as dense as pure gold. Weight is a clue, not an answer.

The price and context check

Where and when a piece was bought tells you a lot. A heavy “gold” chain bought from a street stall, a gold colored bracelet sold alongside fashion accessories, or anything sold with “gold tone” on the label is almost certainly plated. A ring from a fine jeweler with a receipt is almost certainly solid. Inherited pieces sit in between, which is why estates often hold a mixture.

The tests a buyer uses

At a gold buyer’s counter, three methods do the real work. Each has a strength and a blind spot, and a careful buyer uses them together when something looks off.

Acid on a filed notch

The buyer files a tiny notch in an inconspicuous spot, deep enough to go below any plating, and touches it with test acid, or rubs the notched area on a black touchstone and tests the streak. On solid gold the acid does nothing at the right karat. On plated brass the acid fizzes and turns green as it attacks the copper in the core. On gold over sterling silver it turns a creamy or milky color. The notch is the important part: acid on an unfiled surface tests only the plating and will pass a plated piece as gold.

XRF analysis

An X-ray fluorescence analyzer reads the elements in the metal and their percentages in a few seconds without harming the piece. It is the fastest way to identify karat and spot unusual alloys. Its blind spot is depth: XRF reads only the outer few microns, so heavy plating or gold filled stock can return a reading that looks like solid gold. A reading that shows gold plus a surprising amount of copper and zinc, or a result that does not match the weight and feel of the piece, prompts a second test.

Density, or specific gravity

Weighing the piece in air and then suspended in water gives its density. Pure gold sits near 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter, 18K yellow around 15 to 16, 14K around 13 to 14.5, and brass around 8.5. A “14K” bangle that tests at 8.6 is brass, however good the surface reading looked. This check is slower, and hollow pieces need care because trapped water skews the result, so it is used to confirm rather than to screen.

Buyers of New York lists acid testing and XRF analysis on its gold pages, and its cash for gold page states plainly that gold plated items are not purchased as gold, and that if you are unsure whether something is plated or solid, they will tell you at no charge.

What each category is worth at the scale

The difference between solid and plated is not a matter of a few percent. It is the difference between a piece made of gold and a piece that has a trace of it. A worked example with round, hypothetical numbers makes this clear.

Take three bracelets that each weigh 30 grams.

• Solid 14K: 30 grams at 58.5 percent purity is about 17.6 grams of pure gold.
• 1/20 12K gold filled: the gold layer is one twentieth of 30 grams, or 1.5 grams, and that layer is 12K, so half of it is pure gold. That is about 0.75 grams of pure gold, roughly 2.5 percent of the bracelet.
• Gold electroplated brass: a coating a fraction of a micron thick over a bracelet’s surface area amounts to hundredths of a gram of gold, too little to recover economically from a single item.

So the gold filled bracelet holds roughly one twenty third of the gold in the solid one, and the plated bracelet holds next to none. Gold filled scrap does get refined, usually in quantity, and the scrap gold page at Buyers of New York says the team identifies solid, filled and plated items and prices them accordingly. Plated pieces generally have no gold value to speak of.

There are two exceptions. Vermeil and gold plated sterling have real value as silver, so a heavy plated sterling necklace is worth its silver content. And signed costume pieces from collectible makers can have resale value as design objects even though the metal is worth little; our post on whether costume jewelry is worth anything covers which ones.

Fakes built to fool a quick look

Counterfeit gold is a business, and the better fakes are designed to get past exactly the checks described above. These are the ones buyers see most:

• Heavy plated chains with real looking stamps. A 14K or 585 stamp, sometimes with an Italy mark, struck onto thickly plated brass. They pass a magnet check and a surface acid test. The filed notch catches them.
• Tungsten filled pieces and bars. Tungsten’s density is almost identical to gold’s, so weight and a simple density check can be fooled. XRF, ultrasonic testing and drilling are used on bars for this reason.
• Solid clasp, plated chain. A genuine 14K clasp attached to a plated chain, so the stamped part tests true. A buyer tests the chain body as well as the clasp.
• Gold capped coins. A thin gold shell over a base metal or silver coin. Weight, diameter and thickness checks against the coin’s published specifications catch these.

If someone offers you a “gold” chain at a price well below its apparent gold value, the most likely explanation is that it is one of these.

Mixed pieces: when only part is solid

Some jewelry is legitimately part gold and part something else, and a buyer has to separate the two before weighing. A 14K charm on a gold filled chain. A solid gold cameo frame with a shell center. A watch with a solid 18K case on a gold plated bracelet. An 18K pendant with a steel or base metal pin stem. Earrings with solid posts and plated backs. The buyer weighs and pays on the gold parts and either returns the rest or treats it separately. If you know a piece has been repaired, mention it; a clasp swapped in a mall kiosk is often plated even when the chain is not.

What to bring and how we check it

Bring everything you are unsure about, including pieces you suspect are plated. Testing at Buyers of New York is free and carries no obligation to sell, and the testing and weighing happen in front of you on DCA certified scales. If a piece turns out to be plated, you will be told so before any offer is made. You will need a valid government issued photo ID if you decide to sell.

The office is at 30 W. 47th Street, Suite 8006, New York, NY 10036, open Monday through Friday from 10am to 6pm, with walk-ins welcome. Call (212) 642-4345 if you are bringing a large estate lot. Our gold buying page lists the karats and items we purchase, and if you have broken or tangled solid pieces mixed in, the scrap gold page explains how those are weighed and priced.

More questions sellers ask

Does gold plated jewelry have any value?

Very little as gold. Electroplating is often well under a micron thick, which is too little gold to recover from a single piece. Gold plated sterling silver does have value as silver.

Is gold filled worth more than gold plated?

Yes. Gold filled pieces carry a gold layer of at least one twentieth of their metal weight, so a 1/20 12K gold filled item is about 2.5 percent pure gold. That is far less than solid gold, but it is recoverable in quantity.

Will a jeweler damage my piece to test it?

An XRF analyzer reads the metal without marking it. An acid test on a suspected plated piece needs a tiny filed notch in an inconspicuous spot, deep enough to reach below any plating.

What does 925 mean on a gold colored necklace?

925 is the mark for sterling silver. On a gold colored piece it usually means gold plated silver or vermeil, so the value is in the silver rather than the gold.

Can a magnet prove my gold is real?

No. A strong pull shows there is steel or iron in the piece, which rules out solid gold. No pull proves nothing, because brass and copper under plating are not magnetic either.