2016-06-01 Wed

A+ Better Business Bureau rating organised free nationwide “Q&A Rap Sessions” in Denver, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and Ft. Lauderdale to share some handy tips with numismatists and coin collectors about how they can avoid buying fake coins. The latest one would be held on this Friday in Houston and the one after that on June 24th in Chicago.

Experts believe that counterfeiting gold coins is more profitable unlike silver coins which are not as precious as gold or platinum which is scarcely found. Duplicating bullion gold coins has become a trend now-a-days. They say that one should only buy these coins from trusted sources and avoid buying them from online portals like ebay or Alibaba where Chinese counterfeits are distributed widely. The Chinese are making fake bullion coins using lead, zinc and tungsten. Tungsten has the same density as that of gold, making it tough to be identified. These coins are crafted artistically using laser to match their original counterparts. They are extremely difficult to be spotted by the naked eye and cannot be detected by its weight, colour or the way it reflects light. It is very likely that someone would end up paying the price of Gold for a piece of tungsten. Some websites even exclusively mention that they are selling gold-plated tungsten alloy coins and ask buyers to avoid using it for illegal purposes.

Apart from ensuring that you are buying coins from reputed dealers you should also find out whether they are using counterfeit-proofing measurements. Precious Metals Verifier, or PMV, made by Sigma Metalytics is designed to check for counterfeits. It uses specific electrical resistance of precious metals of varying purities to test if a coin is genuine. Some experts use electrical resistivity and radiographic testing, x-ray spectrometry, ultrasound etc. to check if the coins are fake or real. X-ray spectrometry provides a molecular readout of metals up to about 10 microns deep. Drop test is where the coin is dropped on a solid wooden surface; the counterfeit coin emits a dull sound while the original ones give out a clear ring. Also fake coins lack the details in many cases like beards, hair or feathers of images portrayed on them.