Gold - Manchester Police Museum

[PureGold]

I was in Manchester City Centre today with the family and we paid a visit to the Manchester Police Museum inside I came across this..

[BackyardBullion]

a pre-ebay gold bar scam!

[Paul]

Interesting 

[KDave]

There was a story a couple of years ago about tungsten bars being sold to dealers in New York - none of them had a clue they were cladded tungsten. I assume the gold was thick enough to fool testing? This is why I stay away from bars and test every coin I get, regardless of who I bought it from. 

[Xander]

5 hours ago, KDave said:

There was a story a couple of years ago about tungsten bars being sold to dealers in New York - none of them had a clue they were cladded tungsten. I assume the gold was thick enough to fool testing? This is why I stay away from bars and test every coin I get, regardless of who I bought it from. 

How do you test the coin?

[KDave]

Weight, diameter and width first to keep my hand in, then I use a gold tester to find out what ct gold it is. 

45 minutes ago, Xander said:

How do you test the coin?

 

[Xander]

2 hours ago, KDave said:

Weight, diameter and width first to keep my hand in, then I use a gold tester to find out what ct gold it is. 

 

 

Cheers, I take it I can buy the gold tester online, any recommendations?

I bought one of the small brass Sovereign testers, it's more of an ornament, though.

[KDave]

I know that you can buy ones to plug into mobile phones now, Auracle brand testers, those are not too expensive compared the cost of a fake sovereign. The stand alone testers are a bit more but you can pick them up second hand for not bad money, that is how I got my hands on one. Mine is an old Auracle gold and platinum tester, just tells me what ct gold it is and whether it is plated or not. Not sure how it works, but it works. You don't need one of these for smaller coins as you can tell if a coin is fake by the size and weight if you know what you are looking for. In the larger sizes there have been plated tungsten Krugerrands and eagles.

The best fakes I have read about were plated tungsten eagles that were the right size and weight, but they failed an electronic test, and to be fair, they looked terrible and you would probably have known if you had ever handled an eagle before or had a real one to compare it to. I have never heard of anything smaller than an ounce in tungsten, it is probably not worth the effort, tungsten is not an easy metal to work. Coins smaller than an ounce do get faked though, usually they are either plated base metal and the wrong size for the weight, or alloy and the wrong weight for the size. I am told there a great deal of fake sovereigns around, but I have not had the pleasure of finding one.

These are non destructive testers, but I wouldn't want to use the tester pen on a high grade coin for fear of scratching it, though the bullion I have tested has no marks as a result of the testing. I have not detected a fake yet luckily, but the thing has allowed me to make some punts on eBay coins that I would otherwise not have made, all of which have turned out well so far.