| Author |
 Replies: 10 / Views: 926 |
|
|
New Member
United States
18 Posts |
Hello everyone,
is there any trustable trick you can do at home to verify if your coin/round/bar is .999 pure silver, or silver plated?
Thank you,
Raphael
|
|
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
2213 Posts |
Welcome to CCF! It's wise to buy from reputable dealers, local coin stores or well known dealers online you can trust. You might get a good deal from garage sales, Craigslist, Facebook, etc but you are taking a chance getting stuck with fakes.
Tests at home include using weight scale, a magnet or magnetic slide, a tool called the pocket pinger, specific gravity test using water, etc. Use the search line here on CCF, you'll find prior posts about it. There are YouTube videos about testing silver you can watch.
If you have a local coin store nearby they likely have an XRF machine to test metals. Some can only test the outer layer while others can also test the density.
Edited by livingwater
02/19/2024 7:23 pm
|
|
New Member
 United States
18 Posts |
Thank you LivingWater!
Does silver plated coins or bar melt the ice as fast as real silver?
|
|
Moderator
 United States
34393 Posts |
@raph, if you are going to be buying bullion, I strongly recommend you familiarize yourself with multiple tests, especially those that are harder to fool (such as specific gravity).
"If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
|
|
New Member
United States
18 Posts |
@Spence,
Yes, I have to! Out of what I bought, I found 1 fake American Silver Eagle, 10 x 1oz Morgan Design Silver Bar, 1 x 10 oz Morgan Design Silver Bar, and 1 x 1 oz Eagle and Statue of the Liberty Silver bar.
I found that they were fake using magnets (for the American Eagle), and the XRF gun for the others. The first one that I found was the Eagle and Statue of the Liberty bar because I saw it on Aliexpress.
|
|
New Member
United States
18 Posts |
If you write 1 oz or 10 oz silver bar on Aliexpress, you become paranoid on the spot! The copies of almost all the "classics" are there. When you see that, you start questioning everything that you have and that looks like a little bit too shinny and too perfect.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
2213 Posts |
Aliexpress has a lot of Chinese fake coins/bars, don't buy there. They have cheap prices because they are FAKE! Some good online dealers are SD Bullion, Liberty Coin, JM Bullion, Bullion Exchanges, APMEX and others. Watch for their sales. Edited by livingwater
02/19/2024 8:58 pm
|
|
New Member
United States
18 Posts |
Yes, I know. At $2.49 per American Silver Eagle, they only can be fake! lol I was originally looking for capsules and stuff like that, but ebay and Amazon are as cheap as them. |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
2213 Posts |
One good place to buy coin supplies and capsules is Wizard Coin Supply. They have their own online site and a store on ebay too. |
|
New Member
United States
18 Posts |
They have a lot of stuff, Thank you very much!
|
|
Valued Member
United States
136 Posts |
Personally with regards to bars I generally try to buy from the manufacturers. Scottsdale silver for example is convenient for me as I live in California and so stuff comes pretty quickly I had some shocking situations with ebay where I was sent some 1oz gold bars that were in very convincing Perth Mint packaging and they were fake. I actually ended up sending a stern letter to the Perth Mint because the stats that they gave for their bar sizes could imply that those bars were fine and I think the seller got conned when he bought them because of this. You can also open bullion accounts with places like BullionVault or some mints ( Perth Mint does this). They store your bullion and if you ever want it delivered they will arrange to do so (be careful on costs for that though). That can be a good compromise against holding a lot of silver or gold at home but knowing you can get the physical product if you need it. |
| |
Replies: 10 / Views: 926 |
|
Posted 02/19/2024 7:30 pm
