hard silver colour magnetic tarnished easily (rusts)
Answers
Answer:
Metals are identified by examining numerals qualities, including appearance (color, shine, signs of aging), weight, magnification (drawn to magnet or not), use (your bicycle spokes won’t be made out of sterling silver) and hardness. Metal is often easy to identify. It can be more difficult with the metal is a small piece, such as when an embedded part of a larger ornate object.
What can further make make things harder is there are alloys, meaning mixtures of different and varying percentage of metals. Steel, for example, comes in varying percentages of different metals giving it different tone, hardness and magneticism. Gold is almost 100% gold . . . Someone might call something a ‘copper alloy’ meaning the metal is copper metal a smaller percentage of something else. Common alloys names include bronze, steel and brass.
For the purposes of collectors, it’s rarely important to determine the exact percentages of non-precious metal but determine a general label. Calling something an aluminum alloy or an iron alloy is usually good enough. Collectors often just want a good label. Now, if it’s silver or gold, then details are more important. Precious metals (silver, gold and platinum) are covered in an other.
Magnetism
Some metals are attracted to a magnet and some are not. The magnet is a good aid, though not a definitive test, in identifying metals. Metals are usually magnetic because they contain iron, though nickel is magnetic despite having no iron.
Magnetic metals include iron, nickel, cobalt and most of their alloys. Some forms of steel are magnetic, while others are not.
Non magnetic metals include aluminium, copper, lead, tin, titanium and zinc, and alloys such as brass and bronze. Precious metals such as gold and silver are not magnetic. Platinum is not magnetic, but, depending on what other metals is aligned with, can be magnetic in jewelry.
Mohs scale of hardness. The mohs scale of hardness is helpful in identifying metals, and this is a simple test to do. The hardness of a material is ranked on a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being hardes and 1 being softest. Obviously, you want to take care not to scratch valuable antiques. It’s best to do the hardness test on an out sight place, like the bottom.