Tungsten and gold have a comparable density. This company sells realistic looking, fake gold bars, that are supposed to pass typical tests as well. They are advertising them for e.g. as a prop for trade fares and such. Whoever would need a prop at a trade fare to pass a chemical test is anyone's guess...
Yes, fake gold bars like this have obviously already been used for fraud, e.g. of the top of my head: in 2016 a then-18-year-old in Göttingen sold 259 fake bars to a local bank for a total of ~300k Euro until somebody realized it. [1](German)
In multiple transactions, and they called him and asked whether he had more of it. (“Das Geldinstitut soll ihn sogar zwischendurch angerufen und gefragt haben, ob er nicht noch mehr habe.”)
That makes it look like and inside job to me. Alternatively, they must have paid significantly below market value.
finding that amount of gold bars is incredibly hard. People usually respond "comex & london" has gold bars? I dare say 30% are fake, numerous occasions where gold bars stored in the vault are fake.
Bars are unpopular among gold bullion.. hoarders for this exact reason. People generally only buy factory sealed and assayed bars but most prefer government minted coins. They are very intricate and quite thin so not really possible to fake. Plus they are usually technically legal currency so counterfeiting them is very serious.
US gold eagle, Canadian Maple, Australian Kangaroo, Austrian Philharmonic. I’d recommend anyone with a little interest in physical assets to grab one as they’re beautiful pieces and tend to hold their value over centuries
you make it sound like they were trying to rip the chinese gov off.
the difference was 99.99 to 99.999 and it was a small number out of a large shipment and it was clearly and accident.
Its also taking the chinese gov on good faith as they wont ship it back for testing (china buys a lot of gold, and hoards it, its against the law to ship gold out of the country).
as the WA Premier said.. its a f*** storm in a teacup
Fascinating! I’ve never seen the point of owning gold and have wondered why people would buy gold coins (or why they sell simply for the price of the underlying content) rather than just buying plain old bars of whatever size.
I still don’t understand why people buy gold but at least I now see why it’s sensible to buy coins.
My mum married draped in gold jewelry which was too soft to be worn again. I’ve seen the photos and saw the gold as a kid in their safe deposit box, where it’s sat for 60 years. Given that she moved to the west, what was the point?
The reason to own gold is that there is no counter party risk. It can also help transfer wealth between incompatible systems. If there is a currency reset, lost war, or you end up a refugee - Gold is a great option.
Many people have many reasons. Lots of prepper types. Personally I just think it’s cool and fun. Much more satisfying than just seeing a number go up on a website. It’s very cumbersome and dangerous to have a lot of gold though. There isn’t a great solution to storing it. Even a safety deposit box at a bank isn’t insured to more than I believe $200 of precious metals. So if the bank burns or floods or the feds seize it or it goes bankrupt then you probably won’t see that box again. I wouldn’t buy more because of that and also since it’s physical there are a lot of fees - shipping, insuring, storing, mining-refining-minting cost, fees from sellers, low ball offers when you sell yourself, etc. Big headache for larger amounts. But having a few thousand dollars in that form is neat. And it’s a bit of a hedge against any bad event - you can put a few in your pocket and land in any major city in the world and cash it in immediately.
Plus there are not really any other things that have held significant value for thousands of years. Other than perishables - so great for time traveling too
Switzerland has "Precious Metal Control", so I think I can't import fake gold bars without the risk they being confiscated. Not that I would want. I imported a tungsten cube, not as large as these in the Tiktok videos, but it is really a weird feeling to keep it in the hand. Tungsten is brittle and might break if you drop it and probably also the surface dropped on is in danger of getting a hole, so I feel a strange responsibility by just holding the cube.
I bought a cube of tungsten and a cube of magnesium to teach my kids about density, and I was really surprised how dangerous it feels just to hold the tungsten. I only let them hold it a few inches above a table because that thing would break your foot if you dropped it! If you hold the magnesium and drop it one inch you get a delicate little “clop” and if you drop the tungsten one inch you get a solid “BANG”.
I got one of those sets too and was wondering how the heck they manage to cast a tungsten cube given how high the melting point is. But it turns out the actual process uses sintering. (At least for this super inexpensive set we bought)
Oo this is relevant to my world (professional coin & currency dealer here)!
A scourge, but relevant. To address a few different things people have said in sibling comments:
* Theft/security at coin shows is actually a real issue. I know the instinct may be to laugh when they say "Tungsten gold plated bar is the best choice if you are a gold dealer and attend some trade fair or put your gold products in the showcase..." but that almost kinnnnnnnda makes sense. But only kinda. The security issue these days isn't so much about the physical bars being stolen as it is being followed AFTER the show and someone just does an old fashioned smash-and-grab through a window of your car. The advice lately is DO NOT STOP after leaving a show, make sure you're not being followed, etc. Insane but reality.
* Counterfeiting is, unfortunately, also a real issue, and companies like this don't help. The gold standard (ha ha ha) for detection right now is an XRF gun, but the problem is twofold: One, those guns cost $15,000-$20,000, and two, people trust them, so when a good fake can pass an XRF test, the chances are it's going to defraud someone.
* Someone else asked about why people want gold/silver bars/coins. The die-hards (who are remarkably similar to crypto die-hards) will say some familiar stuff -- fiat is worthless, when it all goes to hell you'll still have "real money", they don't trust banks, etc. The more common thinking is just asset diversification/investment. You may not understand a T-Bill or Muni Bond or GOOG cashflow statement, but it's pretty easy to make a bet on gold/silver and buy a few actual pieces of gold silver.
The coins come in several flavors -- there's the modern stuff (American Eagles/Buffalos, Canadian Maple Leafs, South African Kruggerands, etc.) which is valued because, ironically, it's backed and produced by a government so considered to be more real/trustworthy. There's also what's known as "constitutional" silver (actual US coins from pre-1964, which are made of 90% silver) and "pre-33" gold, which are actual US coins from pre-1933, which are made of 90% gold. For similar reasons, they are valued because they WERE money, with known purity etc.
Fun stuff -- feel free to ping me if anyone wants more info!
That is super interesting. I assume it’s easy to spoof the density? And this is probably a stupid question, but do people ever try to alloy the gold to mix in an impurity in a subtle way?
The product description goes into detail of how to produce a fake gold bar and how real their product appears, and even emphasizes that it passes common tests for authenticity - chemical, weight, resonance and even x-ray. "Our gold-plated tungsten bar and tungsten alloy golden bar are only for souvenir and decoration purpose". But, of course...
Edit: Sound passes through tungsten and gold at significantly different rates. Also, a "mixed media" type material would have extra "echos" that a homogenous thing would not.
Maybe a Differential Thermal Analysis/Thermomechanical Analysia? I suspect gold and tungsten have different behaviours when heated, and that should tell both apart.
To identify a gold-plated object, those would have to be done in a destructive manner, i.e. after scratching the object.
In many cases that would not be acceptable, so non-destructive tests may be used, e.g. based on density or X-ray absorption, but those are inconclusive, because tungsten also passes them.
When scratching the object is allowed, then there is little need for a complex test, as the change of color would be enough to show a fake.
> Notice: Chinatungsten Online (Xiamen) Manu.&Sales Corp. is a very professional and serious company, specializing in manufacturing and selling tungsten related products for more than two decades. Our gold-plated tungsten bar and tungsten alloy golden bar are only for souvenir and decoration purpose. We can provide all kinds of tungsten alloy golden bar as your requirements. Here we declare: Please do not use our gold-plated tungsten alloy bar and tungsten alloy golden bar for any illegal purpose.
Oh good, I'm sure nothing bad will happen since they wrote the disclaimer.
How much does tungsten cost per kg in solid bulk form?
Long time reader but first time poster, had to share a story.
A decade ago was riding a bus in China, and they had a PSA type ad playing on the screens (paraphrased) "making sure when you're buying gold you distinguish investment (real) gold bars and decorative (fake) gold bars".
I thought "wow, how bad of a problem it must be to need such a PSA".
The expensive part here is the 1/16 inch gold around the tungsten to fool x-ray scanners, they say that's enough to prevent x-rays from reaching the tungsten.
> In theory, as the density of uranium is 19.1g/cm3, which is approximately 70% denser than lead, tungsten gold plated bar and tungsten alloy gold bar could be used as material of making fake gold products.
Why does this article begin talking about Uranium and lead and then immediately non sequitur into tungsten? There must be something I'm missing?
That is an obvious typo. The intention must have been to write "uranium" everywhere in that paragraph, instead of "tungsten".
Uranium and tungsten are the 2 metals which have about the same density as gold, so they can be used to fake gold. The only alternative would be to use alloys of rhenium, osmium, iridium or platinum (or also neptunium, but that is too expensive and too radioactive), but that would be pointless because such alloys would be too expensive.
Nevertheless, when I have read the paragraph for the first time, I have not spotted the error, because it is also true that tungsten is weakly radioactive.
The majority of the chemical elements heavier than the rare-earth elements, with a few exceptions (lead, gold, mercury and iridium) are weakly radioactive, but their radioactivity is several orders of magnitude lower than that of thorium and uranium.
Ha. So I searched with the first phrases, and there are multiple results that are identical. But then there's this :"In theory, as its density is 19.1g/cm3, which is approximately 70% denser than lead, uranium could be used as material of making fake coin. However, it is weakly radioactive and not as dense as gold, so it does not appear to be a practical method. Then people have discovered that tungsten is environmental-friendly, durable and hardness, the most important is that its density of 19.25g/cm3 is just about the same density as gold (19.3g/cm3), which bears the similar specific gravity."
So I guess someone copy pasted a mistake that someone did when shortening the original version.
"only for souvenir and decoration purpose. ... Please do not use our gold-plated tungsten alloy bar and tungsten alloy golden bar for any illegal purpose."
ya, sure, that's why you make them so they pass chemical tests, x-rays, etc, etc.
Readit News
Yes, fake gold bars like this have obviously already been used for fraud, e.g. of the top of my head: in 2016 a then-18-year-old in Göttingen sold 259 fake bars to a local bank for a total of ~300k Euro until somebody realized it. [1](German)
[1] https://www.haz.de/der-norden/wieso-hat-niemand-das-falschgo...
That makes it look like and inside job to me. Alternatively, they must have paid significantly below market value.
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
US gold eagle, Canadian Maple, Australian Kangaroo, Austrian Philharmonic. I’d recommend anyone with a little interest in physical assets to grab one as they’re beautiful pieces and tend to hold their value over centuries
There are starting to be tungsten cored fake coins good enough to fool most, so validation is still required.
[https://m.alibaba.com/product/60579932545/Gold-Plated-Tungst...]
[0]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-06/perth-mint-gold-dopin...
as the WA Premier said.. its a f*** storm in a teacup
I still don’t understand why people buy gold but at least I now see why it’s sensible to buy coins.
My mum married draped in gold jewelry which was too soft to be worn again. I’ve seen the photos and saw the gold as a kid in their safe deposit box, where it’s sat for 60 years. Given that she moved to the west, what was the point?
Plus there are not really any other things that have held significant value for thousands of years. Other than perishables - so great for time traveling too
Dead Comment
Switzerland has "Precious Metal Control", so I think I can't import fake gold bars without the risk they being confiscated. Not that I would want. I imported a tungsten cube, not as large as these in the Tiktok videos, but it is really a weird feeling to keep it in the hand. Tungsten is brittle and might break if you drop it and probably also the surface dropped on is in danger of getting a hole, so I feel a strange responsibility by just holding the cube.
https://www.bazg.admin.ch/bazg/en/home/topics/precious-metal...
Also the law:
https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/50/345_357_401/en
A scourge, but relevant. To address a few different things people have said in sibling comments:
* Theft/security at coin shows is actually a real issue. I know the instinct may be to laugh when they say "Tungsten gold plated bar is the best choice if you are a gold dealer and attend some trade fair or put your gold products in the showcase..." but that almost kinnnnnnnda makes sense. But only kinda. The security issue these days isn't so much about the physical bars being stolen as it is being followed AFTER the show and someone just does an old fashioned smash-and-grab through a window of your car. The advice lately is DO NOT STOP after leaving a show, make sure you're not being followed, etc. Insane but reality.
* Counterfeiting is, unfortunately, also a real issue, and companies like this don't help. The gold standard (ha ha ha) for detection right now is an XRF gun, but the problem is twofold: One, those guns cost $15,000-$20,000, and two, people trust them, so when a good fake can pass an XRF test, the chances are it's going to defraud someone.
* Someone else asked about why people want gold/silver bars/coins. The die-hards (who are remarkably similar to crypto die-hards) will say some familiar stuff -- fiat is worthless, when it all goes to hell you'll still have "real money", they don't trust banks, etc. The more common thinking is just asset diversification/investment. You may not understand a T-Bill or Muni Bond or GOOG cashflow statement, but it's pretty easy to make a bet on gold/silver and buy a few actual pieces of gold silver.
The coins come in several flavors -- there's the modern stuff (American Eagles/Buffalos, Canadian Maple Leafs, South African Kruggerands, etc.) which is valued because, ironically, it's backed and produced by a government so considered to be more real/trustworthy. There's also what's known as "constitutional" silver (actual US coins from pre-1964, which are made of 90% silver) and "pre-33" gold, which are actual US coins from pre-1933, which are made of 90% gold. For similar reasons, they are valued because they WERE money, with known purity etc.
Fun stuff -- feel free to ping me if anyone wants more info!
Edit: Sound passes through tungsten and gold at significantly different rates. Also, a "mixed media" type material would have extra "echos" that a homogenous thing would not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_thermal_analysishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermomechanical_analysis
In many cases that would not be acceptable, so non-destructive tests may be used, e.g. based on density or X-ray absorption, but those are inconclusive, because tungsten also passes them.
When scratching the object is allowed, then there is little need for a complex test, as the change of color would be enough to show a fake.
Oh good, I'm sure nothing bad will happen since they wrote the disclaimer.
How much does tungsten cost per kg in solid bulk form?
A decade ago was riding a bus in China, and they had a PSA type ad playing on the screens (paraphrased) "making sure when you're buying gold you distinguish investment (real) gold bars and decorative (fake) gold bars".
I thought "wow, how bad of a problem it must be to need such a PSA".
Deleted Comment
Why does this article begin talking about Uranium and lead and then immediately non sequitur into tungsten? There must be something I'm missing?
Uranium and tungsten are the 2 metals which have about the same density as gold, so they can be used to fake gold. The only alternative would be to use alloys of rhenium, osmium, iridium or platinum (or also neptunium, but that is too expensive and too radioactive), but that would be pointless because such alloys would be too expensive.
Nevertheless, when I have read the paragraph for the first time, I have not spotted the error, because it is also true that tungsten is weakly radioactive.
The majority of the chemical elements heavier than the rare-earth elements, with a few exceptions (lead, gold, mercury and iridium) are weakly radioactive, but their radioactivity is several orders of magnitude lower than that of thorium and uranium.
http://news.chinatungsten.com/en/tungsten-dart-news/46-tungs...
ya, sure, that's why you make them so they pass chemical tests, x-rays, etc, etc.