How to Distinguish Gold from Fool's Gold

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Gold is one of the most prized natural  resources out there, and with its absurd natural rarity, it is extremely valuable.  However, identifying gold in the field, sediments, or rocks can be surprisingly difficult, and I  say this with more than a decade of experience occasionally looking for and finding gold in  the wilderness. This is why I have made today’s video to aid in that process for those of you  who do not have the same level of experience.

[00:00:28]The first thing to distinguish between gold  and the multiple types of fools gold is its color. This may seem self explanatory, but  there are ever so subtle differences between true gold and similarly looking minerals.  Pyrite, marcasite, chalcopyrite, bornite, and even certain micas can look similar. Yet  pyrite has more of a dull and silvery yellow or white tint to it, marcasite has more  silvery yellow than yellow or gold color, chalcopyrite has more of a brownish tint to it,  bornite almost never occurs as just a golden color without other colors such as purple and blue, and  certain micas such as phlogopite have too weak of a yellow color to be gold. Gold on the other hand  is much more distinctively yellow than its fool’s gold counterparts. I recommend carrying a hand  sample of pyrite and chalcopyrite in the field so you can directly compare their coloration  with any suspected gold grains or fragments.

[00:01:26]Now onto other distinctive  aspects of gold’s appearance.

[00:01:31]Gold as an element is famously non  reactive and does not tarnish. In contrast, every single fools gold mineral except mica  does tarnish to a certain degree. Golden or yellow mica varieties can be easily spotted  because they are never truly metallic in luster, only vitreous, pearly, or submetallic. Here’s  a quick reference to sub metallic vs a metallic luster using two completely different minerals. Now for a streak test, performed by scratching your mineral on a hard flat surface to see what  color it leaves behind. Do note that this test will damage any samples or jewelry you have so  I do not typically recommend this test. Gold has a yellow to golden streak whereas various fools  gold varieties leave behind completely different colors. Another destructive test which I do not  generally recommend relates to seeing how hard a gold candidate is, specifically using a copper  coin, a calcite specimen, and a fingernail. A fingernail is sometimes able to scratch true gold  although it sometimes cannot, while calcite and a copper coin should always be able to scratch it. True gold also does not typically form perfect cubes like seen with pyrite, and does not  generally contain striations like some pyrite crystals do. Instead, native gold often forms  small masses, or dendritic tree like patterns.

[00:02:58]Gold is also absurdly dense, 19.32  grams per cubic centimeter. That means a pound of pure gold would fit in a 28.63  millimeter wide cube. Pyrite, chalcopyrite, and all other varieties of fool’s gold all have  a density less than one third of this value. If you want to perform a density test, use this  outlined method specifically with freshwater.

[00:03:25]Finally, use context clues and common sense.  Gold doesn’t typically form large hulking masses more than half a foot wide whereas  pyrite or mica can easily do this. Also, check for nearby known minerals. If copper ore  minerals like malachite, azurite, and chrysocolla are found close to a gold candidate, it’s far  more likely to also be a copper ore mineral, specifically chalcopyrite, than gold. I hope that this video is helpful. Stay tuned at a future date to learn how to determine  if a piece of turquoise is real or fake as I also have a great deal of experience working with that  blue gemstone too. As a final note, I would like to thank this channel’s patrons on Patreon and  channel members on YouTube for supporting my work!