What Magnet Is Required To Test For Fakes?

If you never found a fake then how can you be sure your magnet is working for you ;)

I almost wish I would run into a few fakes so I could practice testing etc.

A magnet is a magnet... BUT a neodymium magnet actually REPELS silver (or so I have heard) to a small degree

if you take a hard drive apart they have neodymium magnets

Try a neodymium magnet.

Silver is very slightly diamagnetic (repelled by a magnetic field) but you'll need a really, really powerful electromagnet to make a piece of silver fly away from you by diamagnetism. The most useful magnetic effect measurable with silver and very powerful magnets is neither attraction nor repulsion, but eddy current braking. In effect, a magnet will resist being moved sideways, parallel to the surface of the silver object. But the magnet has to be moving for the eddy current effect to be discernible.


Try sticking it to something you know to be ferromagnetic - like a piece of steel, or an iron nail. Be careful; a neodymium magnet will snap to it real quick, and stick to it like something out of a cartoon.

A weak magnet (like a tourist fridge magnet) will detect fakes made of ferromagnetic materials - nickel, iron, cobalt and a few alloys which may or may not contain those three elements. They will stick to the magnet. Obviously, for people living in countries where the coins are supposed to be made of ferromagnetic materials (such as Canada), a weak magnet will detect fakes made of non-ferromagnetic materials because they won't stick to a magnet. For telling the difference between silver and a non-ferromagnetic silvery-coloured alloy (such as cupronickel, or that odd high-zinc-brass the Chinese use in their cheap fakes) you'll need a stronger neodymium magnet and try to look for eddy current braking. Silver is an excellent electrical conductor; as a result, its eddy current effect is much stronger than most other alloys and elements.

A freind of mine recently pruchased several so called Silver and Trade dollars. All appeared to be real. He took them to a coin show and about ten dealers all ageed they were all fakes. The Chinese are using the same Silver that the originals were made from. They are not making them to be used as a Dollar, but sold as collection coins. So using pure Silver is well worth the expense. No magnets could possibly tell the difference in those he had and a real one.

Until about eight years ago almost no counterfeits were magnetic. Counterfeits tended to be made of lead, debased silver, or plated copper or copper nickel alloys. None of these were magnetic. A nickel plated fake, (plated to make it silver in color) would show a weak attraction to a strong magnet, and of course copper plated steel cents would jump to a magnet.

Then eight or nine years ago the Chinese startedreally producing a LOT of counterfeit dollar coins and they started showing up here in the US. They used planchets that were either steel or had steel in the alloy. These fakes were strongly attracted to a magnet. This made them very easy to identify. Over the past few years the Chinese countefeiters have been moving away from the steel alloy and more toward either coppernickel or even the proper silver alloy (For the top end fakes) These are not magnetic.

The coppernickel versions of these fakes can be detected with a 2 mm neodymium magnet. Put the suspect piece at about a 45 degree angle or less and place the magnet at the top edge. On a coppernickel alloy piece it will just quickly slide down to the bottom. On a silver coin (genuine or counterfeit) the eddy current braking effect will cause the magnet to slooowly slide down the coin. (You need a small 2 or 3 mm magnet because otherwise the weight of the magnet will overcome the braking effect.) But remember a counterfeit with the correct silver alloy will act the same as a genuine coin so a slow slide is NOT proof of authenticity

And I think when Carl said "So using pure Silver is well worth the expense." he wasn't referring to .999 fine silver, he meant using the correct silver alloy is worth the expense.

I save the magnet assembly from worn-out Sonicare toothbrush heads. These very strong magnets can hold thick stacks of papers onto the refrigerator and could of course be used to detect even weakly-magnetic coins.