My son brought me a resistor that was measuring nowhere near it's marked value and I agreed. It was only when he showed me the packaging that I realized he had a choke because the paper banding was marked mH. They look just like resistors. Is there any way to tell them apart?
Yeah, the paper banding is marked mH 
Right but if there's no packaging?
Many components especially surface mount capacitors have no markings and you only know the value if you know what pot they came out of.
The only way is to measure the resistance, capacitance and induction of the part and see which one makes more sense.
A rule of thumb, or maybe just a pinky finger, would be if the color banding says its 10K and it measures an Ohm, it’s probably an inductor.
Ok thanks folks. I didn't know if there was some attribute that I didn't know about.
To what?
That it didn't match the marked value.
When you pay for them: Inductors are usually more expensive...
From my very limited experience resistors are often blue and brown while inductors are green. I don't know if this is some strict rule out just a coincidence.
There are some component identification if you google .
Inductors with color-coded bands are relatively rare these days, compared to ones with "obvious" metal or ferrite cores and windings. (not so much for RF Chokes, perhaps. But the inductors that tend to show up in power supplies and such...)
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