fakes and frauds

[hamsackbag]

Howdy PMBugs,
I was reading another thread tonight and it got me thinking...there are many well know counterfeit gold coins with much documentation. save for a few stories on morgans/peace/trade dollars with super rare dates, a story of 100 oz Englehardt bars and the usual suspects of 1oz 999 fine 1000 mills bars made in China,there isnt much out there on silver in particular. Are there any of us out there with any hands on experience with counterfeit silver? Any coins you have walked away from because it wasn't right? thanks for your time!

 

[DoChenRollingBearing]

"Rocky Racoon" of Zero Hedge fame once emailed me that the Chinese ARE faking Silver Eagles, and yet the Secret Service does not seem too worked up about it... Rocky is a numismatist.

Begin EDIT:

The Secret Service does not seem to be much worked up about Colombian, Iranian and North Korean fake FRNs either. Paper tigers outside the USA I guess...

/EDIT

But, apparently the biggest risk re counterfeiting are numismatic pieces, fake rare coins.

---

The day that is really going to suck will be the day that someone gets away with pretty good fakes of Gold Eagles. Then that will make life that much more difficult, having to test everything or else worry...



Although for the moment it looks hard to use tungsten to fake Gold Eagles (so hard to work with). Rocky also mentioned the Fysch (Fisch?) balance testers (that weigh and measure gold coins, the company is from South Africa and may only have some of these things left). What I do NOT know is whether the Fy/isch balances are calibrated well enough to detect the 1% or so density difference of W vs. Au.

It may be hard now to fake Gold Eagles, but the Chinese are very inventive and will work hard for just a little bit of money... This whole counterfeiting thing is going to be a big problem in the future I fear...

 

[pmbug]

No hands on experience yet (knock on wood), but I have read a lot of chatter about counterfeit Chinese Pandas (silver) being sold on ebay.

 

[pmbug]

... Rocky also mentioned the Fysch (Fisch?) balance testers ...

http://www.pmbug.com/forum/f13/counterfeit-gold-counterfeit-silver-160/

 

[Unobtanium]

Let's suppose that someone wants to sell their silver (generic rounds, ASEs or other minted coins, or bars) to a reputable dealer such as Apmex or a host of similar dealers.

If the silver that the reputable dealer received from that person was counterfeit, would they catch it before they sent it back out the door for the next buyer? In other words, does a reputable dealer take the time to verify that each shipment received and that each shipment going out is authentic?

 

[ancona]

Good question. I would also like to know, just exactly how our interests being protected??

 

[Unobtanium]

Good question. I would also like to know, just exactly how our interests being protected??

Yes, I would definitely want my interested protected by the vendor. But I also want to protect my own interests, which is another part of this thought that I have not yet posted. Thanks for spurring this thought, Ancona.

I would like to invest in some equipment to test both past and future purchases. I have not yet had time to fully research the tools that are out there that a person can use to test their PMs. I don't want to rush into the purchase of a tool or tools, only to find out a month later that there is a better tool or method of verifying PM authenticity.

From what I have gathered, a pair of calipers and an accurate scale are very good to have. But from there, what to add? To keep this thought separate, I am going to start a new thread.

 

[white&yellow999]

Saw this video on YouTube a while back and some people think its fake and some people think it's real. I would be interested in what you all think about it.

 

[pmbug]

According to this page, the 1ozt gold Philharmonic should be 37mm diameter and 2mm thick.