Scammers Gotta Love These! ... Forewarned Is Forearmed ...

I had not thought of that.

I just wonder how many scammers are buying them for re sale later on?

barryg: I don't think there is any intention to deceive in this case.
I am almost 100% certain that the Nazis never produced this sort of thing.
The maunfacturers an sellers of this sort of material are relying on the naivety of an innocent buyer with zero knowledge to take the bait.

Caveat emptor can be a very effective and harsh teacher.
The roots of education can be bitter, but the fruits can be sweet.

Brass is close but silver has a greater mass. The sizes wont be the exact same, but a good one will be similar size. If you deal with them a lot you probably could eye ball out some fakes comparing it to a known real one or weighing them. Leads is a lot closer to silver and I've heard of the real good ones being real silver with the core hollowed and replaced with lead.

Its kind of like a numismatic fake. If you know the series really well you can spot most fakes but if youre new to the series or just dabble in it the fakes wont jump out at you. Of course some fakes are also better done than others.

The online really isn't as scary as its made out to be. Yea there are some bad apples on ebay but most sellers on there arent trying to knowingly pass off fakes on people. It seems that a lot of the risks can be removed just by staying away from deals that seem to good to be true. Of course you can also just stick to the reputable online dealers like the APMEX provident silvertowne ect and if you do happen to get a fake at least silvertowne and provident would replace it no questions asked. I'm sure APMEX would too I've just never really dealt with them personally. The bigger the bar too the more financial incentive to try and hollow it.

The good thing about ebay though is it doesn't even matter what a sellers return policy is since if its fake youll get refunded. They do provide a lot of protection for the buyer sometimes even at the expense of the sellers. Id honestly almost be more comfortable buying from there for stuff I'm not familiar with then an LCS I've never dealt with before because of the protection instead of possibly having to argue with a shop owner.

Wish this was true.
Some sellers are selling fake bars, and only a few buyers will even notice that their fake.

In which case, the seller might apologize, say it was a mistake and offer a refund. It won't help the others who think they have silver bars in the safe. Neither will ebay.

The Feb. 25th issue of Coin World report that there are fake silver American Englehard Prospetus rounds being pass out into the market place, local dealers in Michigan and Texas reports customer with these coming in trying to sell these as silver rounds, and one seller refuse to allow the dealer to test for its purity.

The difference to these is that the fake have a proof like finish to it, while the genuine Englehard round has a duller appearance. These fake round contain 60% copper, 39% zine and 1%nickel. The law authority is working now to track where the source coming from, these fake along with other have been sold to pawn shops and jewelry stores.