How many ounces is this Silver Bar??? Help please!

Oh ok. I can tell you that I wouldn't be waiting till Friday to get that bar tested. I would be calling everywhere within 100 miles and getting it tested today.

 

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If the measurements you took are accurate, it's not silver. There's no need to wait till Friday.

 

Ever heard the expression "you can't cheat an honest person" The people that get ripped off, always think they are ripping off someone else.

 

True, but documentation from someone who tested it saying it's not silver may help him with his case. I know math doesn't lie but police, lawyers etc. always like to see something on paper.

 

TaborTot, I'm sure this whole incident has been a bit of a wake up call for you, but if you're advertising on Craigslist that you buy silver you REALLY need to invest in some serious silver authenticating methods so you can do it at the point of sale. There are a lot of fakes out there... good ones too.

 

Depending on the grade, stainless steel can very in how magnetic it is. Some sticks to a magnet really well, and some is faint.

Now if you lower a magnet onto certain metals, it can kind of slow down the fall. This is called diamagnetism. I know silver is diamagnetic, I don't know about other metals.

Before you buy any more silver, take the time to spend less than $20 on a good test stone and a bottle of acid.

If dealing with over 5 ounces, I would take a photo of their ID, just to be safe.

 

Rather harsh. If someone offers you a $100 coin for $95, are you ripping them off? Of course not, you are just a shrewd businessman. If they offer it to you for $50, now you are ripping them off if you take it. The difference between a shrewd businessman and a ripoff is often a matter of money.

 

I think it's more than money. Is the person selling the $100 coin for $50 some older person who doesn't know the value of his/her coin or a guy who knows what he has but is hard up for cash and is looking for a quick sale? So in one scenario it may be taking advantage of or ripping someone off and in the other, it's not ripping anyone off. There are circumstances to every situation and I believe, in your example, it's up to the seller to know the value of the object he is selling and price it accordingly. That being said, I have a soft spot for elderly people, so I would take special consideration as to make sure I wasn't taking advantage of him or her if they knew nothing about what they are selling.

 

Of course an unmarked item like this could be heavily plated which means you would have to do some serious cutting into the bar to get past any plating so you could trust your test stone and acid.

 

When someone offers you 1200 worth of silver for 500, yes, its likely someone is getting ripped off. Usually its the buyer.

 

Could either be caveat venditor or caveat emptor, just what I was saying. Each case has to be taken on its own merits.

 

The density is in the range of brass and nichrome.
Have you tried scrapping the surface off to see what's underneath? Or drill a little hole. It's not like you are going to hurt it, it isn't even marked.

The buyer was taking all the risk here. The bar was unmarked and he took it on the word of some guy he met on CL from another town. I don't see how you could say he was ripping off the seller.

 

I don't think the buyer was ripping off the seller because there was a substantial amount of risk involved. Sometimes with great risk comes great reward. Sometimes not...

 

If confirmed fake, hopefully the buyer can get his money back. I think the lesson in all this is important though. Can possibly save from much more costlier bad moves in the future.

 

Rule Of Thumb:

If you are not purchasing from a crackhead, and the deal seems too good to be true, chances are it is not.

(*note* Dont purchase from crackheads either)

 

Today is the day of truth: I'm getting the bar tested today. I'll know by this afternoon of what the bar is made. Don't worry...I'm not crossing my fingers as I know that there's less than 1% chance that it's silver. Thanks again for all the help/advice.

 

good luck!

 

I got ripped off last year for buying a "gold coin" for only $75 from some scum bag on Craigslist. It was a 10th oz round and I wanted a gold coin and was naive about it and learned my lesson real quick. I was really mad at myself, but it was only $75 and it made me really cautions about buying from people like that.

I felt even better when I was on coinflation a few months later just browsing and read an article that the guy had been arrested for writting bad checks at a coin show in my area. Showed his picture and everything as it was bittersweet.

 

I don't get why people buy items without having the slightest clue as to what they're doing. That bar doesn't look like silver to me at all, it looks like the bars my uncle uses to make cod jigs with which are coated lead or steel I believe. This is how scammers operate using naivety against people to work their scams. The guy most likely gave you a fake name, address and the phone number will be changed or disconnected next time you call probably. If your going to be buying silver/gold from deals made online from sites like Craigslist etc firstly meet in a safe public location. Second bring an acid test kit, a file, loupe, rare earth magnet, scale,etc and avoid losing potentially hundreds of dollars. You can never be to careful and there is that saying 'a fool and his money are soon parted'. Remember rarely is there such thing as a free lunch, once in awhile we all get a lucky good deal but you really have to vet and use reason versus jumping all in on what seems like an awesome deal or you end up rushing headfirst in and being left with a headache later on.


I've bought some gold coins both off Ebay and even from my local coin shop that upon acid testing came out as being 14K jewelry replicas and not the 22K purity that they were supposed to be. The coins types being mexican dos pesos and dos y medio pesos in case anyone's wondering. There are lots of 2/2.5 gold mexican pesos that fool even dealers because people weigh, look at and forgo acid testing. I've commonly run across these gold peso replicas especially the 'restrike' dates of 1945, at this point I'd say roughly half the ones I've come across have been 14K fakes and very convincing ones versus real .900 fine gold/22K that they are supposed to be. In fact since I buy these coins for bullion value only I have no issue acid testing these coins to be sure I'm not getting the short end of the stick. Any dealer who refuses to test the coin or let me do it in front of them, I take my business elsewhere because there is such a high quantity of replica restrikes that are only 14K versus 22K it's very easy to get suckered, although at least you still get some gold.

 

What was the outcome?