Interesting Item on The Affect of Mercury on Gold

As regular visitors will know, I always encourage visitor participation without which this site would be a much poorer place.

Whether it be additions for the Collective Nouns  (fictitious or otherwise), Place Name Pronunciations Page 1 and Page 2, beauty tips, cleaning hints or just personal experiences, I appreciate the input and, as long as considered interesting and suitable for family viewing, will find somewhere to feature them.

Having said that, there are the odd occasions when I find it difficult to decide on the best place to put a given contribution.  You’ve guessed it – hence this new page!

Some months ago, Viccy Hall contacted me with the following story –

“I thought you might be interested to hear of something that happened to me last Sunday afternoon.  Cleaning a cup board out, I noticed my 40 year old gold wedding ring had turned a very shiny silver colour !

I took it off [with a struggled – my fingers are not as slim as they were !!  The same goes for the rest of me !!]  It was an even silver colour, inside and out. It was quite attractive but it did not look like my wedding ring.

My family recommended I take it to a jewellers to see what they could do/suggest.

 

Monday morning saw me at the local jewellers.  The first  gentleman I spoke to was thoroughly puzzled – I’m not sure he believed me until he looked at the hallmark [22 carat gold].

 

Fortunately a lady came back from her break and recognised the ‘problem’.  I had broken a thermometer and the mercury had ‘bonded’ with the gold of my ring.  [This proves that it is actually a gold ring !!!]  I had seen nothing come out of the thermometer.

Anyway, 2 days and £10 later I have a beautiful, shiny, new looking, gold wedding ring.

Incidentally, mercury can cause permanent damage to a gold item if left in contact for too long  AND it can cause mercury poisoning.”