A month ago I found some chains...

[Archae]

They are the wearable type, I see them on rap stars a lot.

Although the chains are heavy like real gold, they are magnetic, and a jeweler friend of mine said they aren't gold.

(They sure look like and feel like real gold though!)

Anyone know what these would be made out of?

[Orrex]

1. Bronze is magnetic

[Ptah]

2. Bronze is not magnetic

[Orrex]

8. That'll come as quite a shock to the bare bronze rods that I'm holding right now

That are, indeed, slightly magnetic. From a bit of nickel, I guess?

[eppur_se_muova]

9. Bronze is usually nonmagnetic, but certain alloys containing iron or nickel may have magnetic proper

Bronze is usually nonmagnetic, but certain alloys containing iron or nickel may have magnetic properties.

According to Wikipedia. "Bronze", like "brass", is sort of a catchall term, including a wide variety of copper alloys.

[Callalily]

3. It's interesting that your

jeweler didn't tell you what the chains were made of. Surely they would have known.

[Archae]

7. He said they could be iron or bronze.

[Woodswalker]

4. Could be any metal

Or mix of alloys. Gold electro plated.

[Wounded Bear]

5. Probably steel with a brass plating...

might be a gold plate, but that would be pretty expensive. Brass requires more polishing, of course.

[Pobeka]

6. They are made out of 5G chips.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Can you measure the specific gravity ?

If you have something like an *accurate* graduated cylinder you can partially fill it with water, record the volume as accurately as possible, then drop in the chain and record the increase in volume. Multiply that by the density of water (1.00 g/ml) to get the weight of that volume of water. Then weigh the chain, and divide by the weight of the same volume of water to get the specific gravity. A specific gravity of 5, for example, means the metal is 5 times denser than water. Even a ballpark figure will do, as metals cover a very wide range of densities. Some s.g.s:

iron 7.87
copper 8.96
lead 11.34
mercury 13.59
tungsten 19.25
gold 19.32
platinum 21.45
osmium 22.59

All the really dense elements are relatively scarce, so there's no *really* cheap substitute for gold that feels as dense. Gold-plated tungsten, however, has been used to produce counterfeit gold items -- even bullion -- and is weakly magnetic, the more so if it contains tungsten carbide. China has some of the largest deposits of tungsten in the world, and a lot of fake gold items have resulted from its entry into the market.

(Just for completeness, the smartass answer is "metal".)