What if those "Chinese reverse engineers" do something similar as they do with USB sticks, where they buy older slower badproduction memory chips of 8 GB, and reflash the controller chip with software that claims it's 64 GB and that silently deletes existing data when adding above 8 GB? Software could also be written to tell you it's real silver instead of fake. Cheap but fake silver. Cheap but fake silver testing equipment.
Looks to me to be 'just' a metal detector that has an internal library of the conductivity of all the possible metal % for different coins / bars. If the tested metal is the right % then the indicator bar falls between the brackets. I'm sure it covers all the common coins/bars but there'd be plenty that aren't on the catalogue I'd guess. I'd also speculate that if you made a fake coin but used the right % metal ie 999 silver or say 22k for a sovereign etc, then the machine would be fooled by it and show a correct reading even though the coin wouldn't be genuine. I'd still like one though. Bill
I put up a little video also for people who don't know the basics of testing a bar. I am pretty new to stacking so you all probably can add some things. http://youtu.be/dkZfxbfE8T0
I sometimes wonder, in the end, someone only produces fakes because some people specifically demand them. China, Chinese company, receives orders from wherever, for this fake silver. Who reaps most of the profits associated to the difference fake - real? I doubt that Chinese factory has a big part in it. It must be rather those "whoever" that order them, and sell them, good knowing that they're fake, as real. I bought some various stuff from Chinese origin, and one thing has to be said: the quality is much better for the price. Buy a similar item locally produced, price higher, and material less durable. I wonder how these fake bars get into a country. The customs do check for fake things. Brand mimics, products that don't meet requirements, etc. Hell, they even check for insects and whatever 'biohazard' possibly entering the country. The very existence, of a bar silver, with 'mills', plated silver, nearly implies the goal to cheat people. How could any person be voluntarily willing to buy even a much lower price, even just iron price, for a plated silver bar? Who really wants plated silver bars? Nobody? The existence of the product already nearly implies corruption. Then, why do the customs allow it to 1) leave, and 2) enter?
Looks interesting, however can you trust how accurate it is? Just by measuring the current going through the plastic and coins? I'll wait for it to become cheaper, or if its proven working perfectly to get one. Slam
I'm newer to silver stacking however I've noticed a few bad stories here. I'm sorry but I have to ask the following question. Why does anyone buy silver, gold, diamonds, etc. off of eBay? Seems like way too much trouble for the amount of money being spent. The last time I did any business with eBay, I had $300 stolen since I never got my merchandise nor a refund. eBay was no help with any of it.
I always buy from ebay. but from a few trusted dealers. Ebay seller will shipp to my country (Bosnia), and most web dealers wouldnt. I had never any problems with ebay silver. Just dont buy from china
My LCS was just using a regular magnet, mounted on the end of a metal rod... to see if the metal was magnetic or not. I tore apart some old hard drives and gave him a rare earth magnet, and showed him how to do the slide test...not being too technical of a guy he was amazed. He pulled out his bucket of shame, a bunch of one ounce bars he bought just after starting his business that were plated ( After purchasing, he used a file on one of the bars planning to do the acid test...didnt even need to do that...he went through the plating ) The rare earth magnet slid down the fakes at full speed, it would have caught them all. Use it all, ring/slide/known dimensional measurements and weights/file and chemical tests/etc.....there are a lot more fakes out there now.
Agree fully with this sentiment. There are plenty of "fake" plated bars & coins on eBay where the seller clearly states that the goods are not solid and I am noticing that people are paying $60-80 for fake 1938 Aussie Crowns and Melbourne Florins (again where the seller states that the coins are not genuine). What do people want with these fakes, regardless of the price? I accidentally bought a fake "Year of the Horse" - realised 2 seconds after pressing confirm bid - but I didn't leave the glowing feedback that the buyer of the Melbourne Florin did - they paid $80 for it and were pleased, I paid $10 for mine and was not happy. So - why be happy buying fakes? What ill-intentions do these people have?
Take notice of GP when testing silver bars. They tested one for me 600gms it passes the rare earth magnet perfectly sliding down slowly due to the fact that its crap but with 2mm of genuine silver all round. flat silver plate of about 2 mm. Enough to fool the rare earth. Suspicion was aroused by a few grams out on weight. Ultra-sonic soon proved that it is a couple of mm box filled with god knows what. Vietnam made. It was made and bought for me to pay me out on a loan.At top of the silver highs. Going back this year to demand the money back and saw it in half in front of them. Receipt and shop logo still there . So my advice for bigger bars that are suspect do not just trust the rare earth, ULTRA SOUND!!!!! This is the description of test done at GS. Its on the Forum somewhere but dont know where. Description of Tests Done. 03/04/14. Basically the bar appeared to be a box made out of 999 silver sheet that had been constructed around an inner bar, such as a block of copper or similar. The ~2mm thick sheet was more than enough for an XRF machine to just spit out "silver" as a finding, but ultrasonic determined that there was different material internally. Effectively the ultrasonic only penetrated the silver sheet, and gave readings that the bar was about 2mm thick when it was closer to 17mm. On close inspection, fine solder lines were visible along the edge of the bar showing where the outer sheets had been fitted together like the sides of a box. 6 sides, 6 flat pieces of silver sheet soldered into a box. The bar was marked 600g, it weighed 595g. The specific gravity was also off - it was only about 8 based on dimensional measurements when it should have been 10.5. Basically if it was solid silver, it should have weight a lot more for it's size. Without access to an ultrasonic tester, this bar could be determined to be fake on it's measurements alone. Specific Gravity = Mass (grams) / Volume (cubic centimetres), so SG = 595 / (1.7 x 5.0 x 8.4) = 8.3
I have found that if you weigh the silver and do the magnet test, you will catch a huge majority of fakes.
Wow that's exactly the deviceI have already posted. I recently purchased 200 x 1 oz bars and tested every last one of them. I test ever coin (even 1/4 oz gold) and in one coin shop I detected a fake. It turns out the coin shop knew it was a fake, but I couldn't tell the difference. I've been told by one bullion dealer that it detected an issue that the XRF didn't detect. https://bulliondeposit.com.au/product/precious-metal-verifier-set-bullion-wand-sigma-metalytics/
It looks like a lot of money (it IS a lot of money), but it's 10 to 20 times less than XRF machine and so portable and light that it can fit in any bag or backpack.
