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I put muriatic acid on a object; it turned pinkish brown

I put muriatic acid ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil link] on a object thought to be gold it turned pinkish brown what does that mean. I'm a small beginner collector of nic nacs.

Brad Kelling
self interest - Walnut Creek , California, USA
2005

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2005

It means it's not solid 24k gold, but it doesn't mean much more than that. Spot testing of metals must be done in accordance with a predeterminded tree structure. To conduct one test from the middle of the tree and ask what you have is unfortunately rather like taking one step from a recipe, "add three eggs", and guessing what it's a recipe for.

I believe that a simple spot test tree can be found in the Metal Finishing Guidebook, but there are whole books on the subject (Rapid Spot Testing of Metals & Alloys [on "Amazon affil links] by A. Holmes, Spot Tests in Inorganic Analysis by Fritz Feigl).

Hydrochloric acid is nasty stuff and I hope you are using some guidelines for safe experimentation.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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