Added to the stack! My dealer assured me it's a 90% gold coin, but that it was a fake. So I got it at melt, which still kind of hurt the wallet a little, but at least now I'm one step closer to being able to fill that gold page for the 7070, if I ever get it. If it even fits into the slot lol! But hey, counterfeit gold coins that are gold is still gold in the stack, right?
If he knows it is counterfeit, how does he know it is .900 gold? The weight can be faked with tungsten. Not saying it isn't gold, because it may well be, but I'd want to know how he is sure.
I'm guessing that gold dollars would be about the last target for tungsten-core fakes. There's just not that much room inside them to displace gold with tungsten. You'd probably still end up with a coin that's more than 50% gold, as opposed to the larger denominations where a tungsten core can replace 75% or more of the gold, if I'm remembering correctly (I seem to remember fake AGEs still having something like a quarter ounce of actual gold).
He has a sigma, so I trust that he read it with that prior to putting it out for the common folk to look at and declare it 90%. He's a very easy-going type of guy, so I'll bring the coin back just to have him scan it in front of me to be 100% sure and he won't bat an eye. And he'd offer a refund immediately if something was off, or probably even if I changed my mind on it.
Not my area. But compared to this photo. Your LIBERTY seems mushy. Yes it's a diff date, but I think it is the same design. Odd that the weight and gold content match correctly.
No, it won't, in this context. Gold blocks X-rays too effectively. An XRF gun can only give a reading on the 10-15 microns of a high-gold alloy. It'll pick up if the piece is just gold-washed or very thinly plated, but not if it's a tungsten core wrapped in a substantial fraction of a millimeter of gold. (As I understand it, tungsten-core fakes wrap the tungsten with enough gold to accept the struck design, because tungsten is too hard and brittle to strike itself.)
I thought so, too. The majority of details are very soft and the stars just look wrong. But it has some cartwheel look to it on the obverse, and there's what appears to be a die crack on the reverse. The weight being off slightly doesn't really match up to the amount of "wear" it shows.
I missed the 4% discrepancy on the weight on my first read-through. Yeah, these coins would never have been that far out of tolerance when struck, and would have had to circulate a lot to lose that much weight. What's the exact thickness of the coin? If it's a little thinner than a real piece, maybe it's 90% gold - it's hard to judge, though, because the coin's volume is so small relative to its relief. If it's thicker, there's a good chance it's a heavy gold layer over a base metal.
I don't have calipers, but I do have another dollar to compare it to. That one is a type 2 though. Edit: Scratch that idea, the T2 is a completely different size
That brings up a good point. Wondering what my Gold colored 50 peso is worth today? Gold over aluminum near as I can tell... would have to leave it in the holder to get closer to the actual weight
It's very rudimentary, and I've seen rulers side by side that simply don't match increments, but this is as good as I can do currently.
Okay, at that weight, diameter, and thickness, I don't think this is likely to be gold-plated base metal. It would have to be noticeably thicker to weigh as much as a legit gold piece, even if the inside was lead. (I don't think anyone's making these out of gold-plated thorium or uranium, and if they were, that would be really easy to detect!)
Even then, it wouldn't be very radioactive. Less than an old-school smoke detector. But they'd have a really hard time getting larger lots past port security, I think.
Yes many counterfeits are made with real gold, I trust your guy besides you got a great price on it, I would have gladly bought it!
I'll put my official request in to Santa. It's early enough still so the elves should still have enough time to make it extra special good.
