How To Invest In Gold Now – Buying And Selling Gold, Coins, Bars, Shares, Mining, ETFs

Due to the valuable nature of the Silver and Gold Bullion Coins, there are many counterfeit coins generated to cheat the unwary . Counterfeit can means two things, the ‘fakes’ and ‘copies’ of coins, these are two different things whereby ‘copies’ means coins that are minted to follow the physical look of the original but they are minted with the same metal that are used to mint the original coins. Therefore unless you collect rare coins, ‘copies’ coins should not be a concern because you will be essentially buying the same gold value of the real bullion coin. In fact, ‘copies’ bullion coins are virtually non-existent in most types of bullion coins, scammer would only consider making ‘copies’ unless the coin in question happened to be very rare, which means that the coin will fetch a much higher value above its own metal content. Spotting ‘copies’ can be very difficult, as the size and weight of the ‘copies’ will equal to that of the real version, and counterfeiters tend to pay more attention to the many detailing of the coin, including face design, number of reeds, mint marks etc.

‘Fakes’ are more of a danger for Silver and Gold Bullion Coins collectors, as ‘fakes’ are made with cheaper metal than the original bullion coin. This means that ‘fakes’ can practically sell for naught since the value of bullion coin are heavily based on its metal content. However the good news is that fakes are much more easier to ruled out, since they tend to have different size and weight in comparison the original. With the aid of a few instruments, such as a digital caliper, and a minute weight scale that can accurately measure up to 0.01 g, fake coins can be easily singled out / identified. For gold coins, there are also specialized tools such as the The Fisch tool, manufactured by Fisch instruments that checks the vital measurement of a specific coin, which includes its minimum allowable weight, maximum allowable thickness, maximum allowable diameter as well as the shape as defined by the mint that issues the coin.

Common ”fillers” for gold in fake coins include leads, brass, copper and steel, as gold and platinum are some of the heaviest metal that exist in nature, most metal that are denser than that are either radioactive (impossible to work with) or too expensive. This means that gold or platinum ‘fakes’ are either: the wrong size, underweight or both. Which makes ruling out ‘fakes’ relatively easy.

Silver ‘fakes’ can be more of a challenge to identify as they can be made from silver plated lead, which will give them a weight that will heavier than a genuine coin. However there are still guidelines to identify fake silver coins, firstly if the coin weights less than usual, it is almost always a fake. Secondly, if the coins weights much heavier than usual, it is also most likely a fake as well. And since silver coins are relatively cheap, some scammers don’t even bother filling in the details of a genuine coin, which means that a fake coin could have some obvious errors such as the absence of a reed edge, some missing or incorrect design features, the presence of protrusion around the edge (resulted from a casting sprue), files marks, as well as unusual silver sheen (too shiny or too harsh). If in doubt, a further magnification test up to 10x could also help to identify the evidence of silver plating by observing if there is any unfilled spots or crevices, unplated edge on the rim or between the reed.

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