What would you do? Gold service pins.

[Spartcom5]

Found these at a garage sale all for $35. Dilemma here is that most of them are mounted on another piece of jewelry. The only one not mounted is marked 10k so I suspect the others might be as well. In the plastic box there is a tag that says 10k Emblems. They are mounted on gold filled pieces, which are indeed original as they are marked cTo. With that said however, the one on the belt buckle looks gold filled to me. So now I am curious to find out which are and aren't 10k gold. What would you all do? I would like to take them off cleanly, no damage to anything. The stones were tested and are all real rubies, emeralds, citrine, and diamonds. I was thinking acetone? But I am afraid the gold filled or the stones would be damaged....... Any input on this?

 

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[tamrock]

Check the sales history of those on eBay. I picked up a charm bracelet with like 8 or so of the Bell telephone charms. I think you'll get more out of each charm selling them as is and complete. I did take mine to the precious metals buyer and he tested the kind that were mounted on the goldfilled part and he wasn't convinced they were solid gold. I don't know, because one other time he tested a small unmarked label pin I took and he excluded it as being goldfilled. I told him I think he's wrong and to go ahead and put a deep scratch in it and a drop of acid. He did as I asked and there no reaction in the scratch. He then became convinced and bought it also. Wish I could tell you for sure those mounted bells are for sure gold, but I got more out of those charms selling them complete then what I'd a got had I removed them if they were really small pieces of solid 10K gold, by my estimate.

 

[Spartcom5]

Thanks Tamrock! I think my best bet here is to keep them as is. I can get an electronic gun and see what they come up as. Really hard to discern gold from gold filled however but it's my only way to test them!

 

[JimDon]

I would sell them as is and make a note in the auction that you do not know for sure if they are gold or gold filled without removing and damaging the pieces.

 

[tamrock]

From my experience of selling those is the buyers are paying the prices as if they're gold and more then scrap value in some cases. I think they are gold and I'm sure many buyers on eBay who buy them already know that, but they do seem to have a higher value to collectors then to the scrap buyer of gold who shop on eBay.