What Is Easier To Counterfeit Silver Or Gold Coins?

Both have been with equal nefarious results. One of the most successful operations before the onset of the current Chinese counterfeit craze was the Middle east gold counterfeiting (Lebanon) before the legalization of Gold in the US. Currently I would bet the Chinese doing silver examples of key coins would win. Although the gold plated tungsten one ounce bar scam is up there.

re the tungsten gold;
I read quite a few articles on this in Miningnews.com, there are still loads of undiscovered bars that were faked and bought that are still stacked in various locations unknown and unknown.

I would say gold, the unlikelyness of gold to tone, along with the gold over tungsten scam allow counterfeit gold to be passed off easily when compared to silver.

In regard to welding (tig(FCAW)) the tungsten breaks apart easily when amounted pressure is given. But with heat it can go for days... HAHA

i would say silver is easily to fool someone or to create simply because silver is not as valuable as gold, so gold would be tested more likely then silver.

Simply due to cost, silver is much easier to fake in volume and fool someone with. It makes up the vast bulk of faked coins nowadays.

Tungsten-core-gold is hard to detect, but tungsten is a *hard* metal to work with and as such trickier to produce. Other fake gold alloys or gold plated copper or the likes is much easier to detect due to problems with weight and due to cost gold is more likely to be weighed.

If I was making fakes I think I would stick to Silver more than Gold for a couple reasons firstly if your shipment gets busted you loose big time with gold. But if you use real silver and perfect your minting skills then the sky is the limit.

Knowing the difference is the key this link has some tests for silver that are easy, can be done inexpensively they are very accurate and could be applied to gold (change the math up a bit) as well..there is a couple cool easy tests you probably never seen before.
http://www.silvercoins.com/fake-sil...ounterfeits/

I say silver is easier to scam. Number one key is public perception and it is engrained in our psyche that gold is worth more than silver. Proof of that is in our phrases like "worth its weight in gold" or "a golden opportunity". Also, people think in terms of colors for some odd reason and think that silver is a color and that gold is a color. Combine these two and you have a recipe for allowing silver to be "easier" to counterfeit, or at the very least it's easier to fool people into thinking that a certain item is silver. Silver items, because silver is cheaper than gold, are bulkier and no alarm bells go off if you have a "silver" belt buckle, for example. But because gold is worth so much people will scrutinize it more than silver. Gold is very soft and a good whack, albeit a destructive test and not advised, will prove your hypothesis. If you're stacking gold and worried about fakes then get the thinnest coins possible because you can bend them with your bare fingers. If you bite them it will leave a mark. Pure gold is really that soft.

If you're skilled at finding fake silver you have nothing to worry about. It's the metal that takes the best shine but only for about a day or so of wear. Bad alloys will tarnish heavily.

@fixguy: Don't put acid directly on your coin. Buy a touchstone and do a simple scratch on its edge.

Again, if you don't know what silver and gold are stay away.