Nickel vs. Steel how to tell.

[issabre]

I recently purchased a set of heavy copper cookware that was supposedly lined in nickel. However, a friend of mine told me that he thinks that it is stainless steel and not a nickel lining as it looks stamped into place and not wiped on. Further, he said that nickel is more shiny than steel.

I know that nickel is one component of stainless, but is there a way to tell whether these linings are pure nickel or are stainless? Is there a test that I can perform to be sure?

I heard that nickel won't draw a magnet and these linings definitely do draw a magnet.

Any advice is a appreciated. Todd

[fly]

A certain blend of stainless will draw a mag. but if I had to guess, the pots or stamped stainless, due to liability cause if it was nickle plated it could stand a chance of peeling off, but thats my guess.

[thesound]

I'm with Fly on this one: both copper and nickel are non-ferrous metals which mean they can't be magnetized. If this cookware was in fact lined with nickel a magnet wouldn't be sticking to it. 409 stainless steel however, will hold a magnet. (409 has a higher concentration of carbon.) If I were to guess the actual makeup of this cookware, I would lean more towards it being copper plated stainless. Copper cookware was a "trend" way back years ago, and alot of people like the looks of it because of it's "Old World Charm," so there's still a good sized market for it. However, copper will corrode if not kept polished, so I would imagine that the manufacturer of this stuff took the best of both worlds approach and made the inner surfaces that would come into contact with moisture stainless and plated the outside with copper for the looks. Just a guess.