These collections of instruments and chemical compounds are designed for the qualitative evaluation of valuable metals. They usually include testing acids, a touchstone, and directions for figuring out the purity of gold and silver. As an illustration, rubbing a pattern throughout the touchstone and making use of a selected acid reveals the steel’s composition primarily based on the ensuing response.
The utilization of those kits gives a number of benefits, together with offering a way for rapidly verifying authenticity and stopping fraud in transactions. All through historical past, numerous strategies have been employed to establish the worth of valuable metals; trendy testing strategies construct upon these time-tested rules, providing transportable and comparatively cheap options for authentication.