Some time ago I inherited a few Krugerrand 1oz coins and a few Mapple Leaf 1 50 dollar coins. I took them to a friend Jeweler, and much to my distress they weighed between 20 and 22 grams each - so they are certainly extremely underweight and fake. He also put some chemical on them, and the spot that reacted with the chemical turned greenish - he said they are certainly not pure gold either. The question is, can I identify if they are gold at all (10k, 14k, 18k) or just some cheap metal? And can I get any kind of money for them if they turn out say 14k gold? Thanks in advance.
Have you weighed them yourself? Dealers are notorious for undergrading coins. I have not heard of that many 1 ounce fakes. I know there is tungsten in kilo and 10 ounce bars. It seems to me with 1 ounce coins it would be so much easier to detect fakes. You might want to invest in a kit for yourself, so you can be sure of your own results. I have seen kids getting underpaid right in front of me with coins they inherited. If it turns out they have gold but are of less than standard purity, maybe you can work something out with a dealer. The only problem is, they grossly underpay most of the time, even with legitimate coins.
you can buy a cheap gold testing kit on ebay,or amazon for around $10. they come with different stregnth acids for different karrot gold. they do not turn colors,but rather dissolve the scratch on the stone left by the fake stuff.
Yep, I actually heave precision scale, and I weighted them (I have six total) and they are between 20-22 grams.
or better yet take them somewhere that tests electronnically, make sure they do it on the edge of the coin.scratching will kill any collector value if they are real
OK, if there is a way for you to determine the purity, maybe you can work something out with a dealer. What you might want to do is shop around for prices and see if any one of them wants to buy coins that may have SOME gold. The only problem here is, unfortunately, it's a loss either way because whoever gave it to you got scammed. I hope you can get something out of it.
Let me emphasize that it doesn't matter, at least in theory, whether the coins are 10k, 14k or 24k. In theory, the coins can be refined and the gold extracted. The key is determining purity to make sure you aren't scammed.
The various gold alloys will have different specific gravities.General range, as exact range will need to know if alloyed with silver or copper. 24ct Pure Gold SpGr = 19.32 ( 19.32 grams per cubic centimeter) 18ct Gold Alloy- SpGr = ~15 to ~17 (red golds near the lower end, white golds near the upper) 14ct Gold Alloy- SpGr = ~12.9 to ~14. 9-10ct Gold Alloy- SpGr = ~10.9 - 12.7
Using a guide i wrote earlier: 2. Magnet test. (Simply enough pass a strong neodymium magnet over the coin to see if its magnetic). If it magnetic chances are it has 0% gold. 3. Verify the measurements of the coin and weight of the coin. You can use a caliphr and jewelers' scale for this purpose. You can use these dimension along with weight to calculate the coin's density which could allow you to determine what metal it is. If it over is 13 g/cm^3 you know it has some gold content....
From what I see online, both coins are roughly correct in size, but severely underweight. I'm worried that they are just cheap copper alloy with no gold content.
Regarding the brass hypothesis, I found something interesting via Google (apparently some Krugerrands were made with brass and dipped in gold): http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...mrwlAAAAIBAJ&sjid=evMFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2769,223687
They are not genuine and contain only a thin coating of gold. I have seen examples of these before. A green fizz on the acid test indicates copper or brass... Sad to say they are worthless.