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Tungsten gold coins. Fake gold coins


Byronvan

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Hi there I'm new to collecting gold coins and have recently bought a goldlock scanner which is amazing and can test for tungsten in gold coins. However I'm not sure how to detect for a tungsten coin that's just gold plated.  

The question i would like to ask is this.  Would a tungsten coin react similar to a genuiene silver coin when tested with a rare earth magnet? Since tungsten is also slightly magnetic?

I'm just trying to find other ways of making sure things I buy are real gold. 

Thanks in advance. 

Byron

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Buy from reputable dealers and Forum members and you should be fine.
Never heard of a tungsten coin because I assume it would be too difficult to press hard tungsten to replicate a coin.
Tungsten rods inside bars or thick gold plated tungsten bars is another matter and buying from unknown sources could be a risk.
I am not sure you can use magnets or any other tests other than to drill through.
If your drill bit cannot make a hole then it's tungsten inside.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I take it this is one of those things that uses ferrofluid or a magnetic field viewing lens along with a magnet?  Have you tested it with different materials to see how they react or what they look like?

Do you think you'd be able to tell a plated coin from a solid one?

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Tungsten is paramagnetic, so it is attracted by a permanent magnet, while gold is diamagnetic and is repelled. I would also expect a gold plated forgery to fail the ping test. The sound made when a coin is balanced on the end of your finger and gently tapped with a metal object is distinctive. There are apps such as Bullion Test that can help with this test.

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Yes, we all know the usual tests, size, appearance, sound, density etc, but the op has obviously bought one of those 'testers' with a magnetic lens or  ferrofluid sandwiched between layers of plastic with a spacer for the coin.  A magnet is also supplied so you can see how the coin reacts to the magnetic field from this magnet.

I wanted to know how well this worked in practice.

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  • 3 months later...
11 hours ago, celticbhoy said:

If a crook has managed to forge a tungsten coin and then gold plated it to appear authentic then i,m afraid the old ping test could be fruitless, afaik tungsten has a very similar density to gold so it should ping the same especially under a thin gold plating.

I'd be surprised if the wavelength of sound produced was entirely dependent on it's density. You can notice a difference in ping tone between real and fake silver or gold coins even though made of exactly the same alloy.

Profile picture with thanks to Carl Vernon

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