Gold / Silver Tester - which one to buy ?

[DanTer]

HI

I occasionally buying some silver/ gold , here , ebay, or facebook marketplace.

Just wondering what would be the best ( affordable ) tester for metals ?

Can someone recommend any equipment in reasonable price for home use ?

 

 

[Clockpuncher]

There was talk of a group order for the Sigma precious metals verifier. Expensive but seems to be the gold standard for testing

[AlphaBeast]

You can use neodymium magnets for silvers. Will slide off slowly when silver held at an angle. If fast, fake.

SilverTrader is an amazing guy who usually give one free per order, otherwise not that pricey.

[silenceissilver]

The best relatively cheap way to test is the specific gravity test combined with a neodymium magnet. The magnet works for gold too although it's more effort than for silver to get it right because the effect is smaller. I say relatively cheap because the scale used for it shouldn't be too cheap because a proper scale will need to be recalibrated maybe once a year and for cheap scales this doesn't work very well if at all.

If you get tired of that like I did, it's not cheap anymore. You can't get cheap, comfortable to carry out plus high validity combined, only two at at time.

If cheap is not an issue, then the Sigma Pro is probably the best choice. I have it, I'm satisfied with it. But there are competitor products I have no personal experience with but as far as I can tell, they only work like the Sigma (without pro), thus they don't measure through the whole coin.

This is the only competitor to the Sigma I am aware of:

https://www.gold-analytix.de/en-uk/shop

This model has the advantage over a Sigma that it doesn't need the mains to work (USB charged, I think), so you could use it in a shop. However, as said, it doesn't measure through the whole coin:

https://www.gold-analytix.de/en-uk/goldscreenbox

 

[silenceissilver]

14 minutes ago, silenceissilver said:

You can't get cheap, comfortable to carry out plus high validity combined, only two at at time.

Just like you can't get a women that is beautiful, intelligent and not barmy, only two of these three qualities.

[Clockpuncher]

@silenceissilver where did you source your machine from? I've been mulling over getting one (and was thinking about joining the group order but it seemed to fizzle out with Covid). There don't seem to be any UK distributors so the only option is Ebay with a massive shipping & customs charge!

[silenceissilver]

18 hours ago, Clockpuncher said:

@silenceissilver where did you source your machine from? I've been mulling over getting one (and was thinking about joining the group order but it seemed to fizzle out with Covid). There don't seem to be any UK distributors so the only option is Ebay with a massive shipping & customs charge!

I bought it directly from the US with all the shipping and customs involved. It was sitting at customs for weeks, actually but that's seems to be a lottery.

There is also a Slovenian distributor and now there seem to be additional distributors, the closest one being in Germany

https://www.sigma-verifiers.com/

https://www.sigmametalytics.com/buy-from-distributor

 

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Added 0 minutes later...

Not watched it but it seems to be interesting for people who consider buying one