Chinese crooks are minting fakes in large quantities and selling them to Europe and the US Anyone knows a good way to detect if your gold or silver ( bars and coins ) is Legit? and not fake?
Yes a lot of fakes and imitation sold by Chinese companies, but the last leg of the distribution is by local crooks. Ie many fake 1 ounce, 10g and 5g gold bars are sold for few dollars each by Chinese wholesalers, but the crooks selling than for 1600, 450 or 200 dollars are usually local scum, on eBay anyway. Not saying Chinese wholesalers don't know but need two to tango
Yes, that's also hard to verify it. Recently when I bought some gold & silver bullion from Perth Mint and also ABC Bullion, they both does not comes in a shiny package, no barcodes, no certificate and no serial number. Only the minted metals got certificate and some serial number.
They're also faking the shiny packaging, barcodes and serial numbers. Best to buy from reputable dealers if you don't know how to test it.
You can spend from $20 to $20,000 on test equipment. I've taken the $20 option which is a set of 100 gram scales and some rare earth magnets. With the scales you can measure weight and density, and there's a number of different magnet tests using various sized magnets, but the most useful is a rare earth magnet about the size of a grain of rice. There's also iphone apps with ring tests, but I haven't used these much. There's lots of other test equipment around, but they've always been a bit expensive for me.
The magnet does not work with slabs and is very difficult to do reliably on big bars and/or high premium coins. This is an expensive hobby and buying a fake makes it even more expensive I caved and bought a Sigma Precious Metal Verifier. If you buy a bit and occasionally sell it pays for itself eventually. On ebay, its a big easier to sell with the "Verified by PMV" vs the next seller that doesn't. So I look at the verifier as insurance and peace of mind! The more expensive PM's get the more valuable a tool like this becomes as the growth of the fake market continues to grow.
precious metal verifier has let alot of fake bars with tungsten go by and saying its Legit a friend of mine send he's precious metal verifier back to http://sigmametalytics.com/ and got he's refund so i'm still looking for a better way to confirm if my bars and coins are alright and not some fake one's from china i was wondering about if i should send my coins to PCGS to get my coins graded maiby that will tell me if my coins are legit or not because i dont think PCGS would ever grade a fake coin am i right? or this just sound like a stupid idea? :/
Really? I know they say it's not 100% fullproof because the verifier can only scan through a certain amount of plating. If the plating is really thick, it won't know.
@r1lee i dont trust this new product since my friend had problems with it, so im kinda trying to find a better way with something that will tell me 100% for sure that my bars and coins are legit no matter how thin or thick they are.
How did your friend confirm or validate it was incorrect? Did they use a fake bar that tested positive? Did they use an XRF scanner? What version of software and what wand was he using? (there is a 3rd wand out that can check a bit deeper into the metal). The only reason why i ask this, is because your friend might not be using it correctly. The settings are a little tricky at first but it takes a little time to get used to. Did you see the test or just going by what he said? The manufacturer mentions that there are metals with similar electromagnetic properties but when combined with physical indicators like size and weight in relation, then a complete picture can be seen. All you have to do is RTFM. http://sigmametalytics.com/faq-s.html The only way to be 100% certain is to cut everything in half and test with a $10k + XRF scanner + acid "NEW BULLION Wand increases the depth of measurement by a factor of four."
From my understanding, that doesn't work for slabs or coins too, only bars. The plastic gets in the way of the ultrasonic and the coin design screws up the detection.
I've heard that tungsten doesn't have the ringing sound like gold when dropped, but I've never been able to get a tungsten coin to test this.
