FAKE GOLD & SILVER - Exposing the Fake Silver & Gold Bullion Coming Out Of China

Tungsten is an amazing metal: hard and dense, with the highest melting point of all elements, tungsten is used in many industrial and military applications where high temperatures or radiation are an issue. Alas, with a density very close to that of gold, it has also become the material of choice for many in the business of faking gold coins or bars. Professional sellers like Kitco will use a combination of markings (micro-tags, holograms, DNA tags etc.) and buyers use multiple tests (dimension / weight ratio, XRF, conductivity etc.) together with plausibility checks to determine if an item is real. As a collector or private investor, how do you protect yourself from falling victim to forgeries, tungsten or otherwise?

It has recently come to the industry's attention that a Chinese manufacturer has produced counterfeit silver bars from a number of prestigious mints including Johnson Matthey, Engelhard, Sunshine and, unfortunately, a small number of those we mint as well.

These counterfeit bars are easy to spot if you know what you are looking for. There are several techniques to spotting a fake bar, primary of which is related to the characteristics of silver itself. Because of its density, nothing else weighing one troy ounce can have the dimensions of our bars and still be pure silver. Most likely the bar will be silver-plated (though the criminals selling them may claim they are solid silver measurements to the ones we publish. In March, certain corners of the Internet exploded when a one-kilo gold bar was allegedly found to have been "salted" with Tungsten

In other words, a gold bar was filled with a much cheaper metal to defraud buyers. An ounce of gold is worth $1,766, while an ounce of Tungsten is worth about $360. ZeroHedge conspiracy theorists into a frenzy: 3 tungsten based counterfeit gold coins, a Krugerrand, an American Eagle and a Maple Leaf. All are 1oz Ringer test

A gold dealer in Manhattan's Diamond District on 47th Street discovered last week that an evidently certified gold bar was in fact more than 75 percent Tungsten desity

fiat money banksters’ fake-money, i.e. our fraudulent (and now worthless) paper currencies. silver gold commodity bullion
precious metals investor has heard on countless occasion that gold and silver have historically always served as “the canary in the coal mine” for our monetary system, in general, and the rate of depreciation of our currencies, in particular. Simply, rising gold/silver prices are an indicator that our currencies are losing their value. Rapidly rising gold/silver prices are an alarm siren that these currencies are rapidly losing value. 1 kilo tungsten gold bar turned up in the United Kingdom. Magnetic Test Magnetic Slide Test The Ice Test Dimensions Test Below we have a real vs. fake American silver eagle. counterfeit eagles. Having the same minted year will help with minor differences that may occur between each strike. You can see font differences alone on both the obverse and reverse should be enough to spot the fake. (Ignore the glossy and mirror finishes). The great thing about silver is that it has a certain high-pitched ring ping test and it works fairly well.
The only thing we can do now is to prepare for it and that means stockpiling critical supplies, just like you might for an earthquake or snowstorm, but in larger quantities.

Because, if and when hyperinflation starts people will quickly realize that their dollars are worthless. And as we have seen time and again, and most recently in Russia, when a currency rapidly loses its value the public will have no option but to panic buy everything that isn’t nailed down in an effort to unload their diminishing purchasing power before their currency is completely worthless.