Hey guys, I was watching a YouTube video about a guy who uses different tools (digital scale, calipers, XRF machine etc.,) to detect counterfeit coins and I decided to have some fun by checking my own coins. The very first thing I tried was a tube of American Silver Eagles I bought on APMEX with Mint Direct packaging which means the tubes from the monster boxes are unopened and sealed in their original mint packaging (photo below). *if you want to know more about Mint Direct you can check out what I mean at www.apmex.com/mintdirect * An American Silver Eagle is supposed to weigh 1 troy ounce or 31.103 grams. Most of the ones I weighed came out between 31.15 - 31.2 (totally normal) however I had a few strange ones that weighed up to 31.33 grams! (photo below). How can this be? There is no possible way that any of these coins are fake, altered, or counterfeited in any way based on the reputation of APMEX and the tubes being still sealed in their original Mint packaging. Yes I understand that coins can’t all weigh exactly the same and that there will be variations due to imperfections in the minting process but a whole extra 1/5th of a gram (0.2g) seems a bit much. Let’s assume the Mint makes 4 million (they probably make a lot more) American Silver Eagles one year.. 4,000,000 x 0.2 grams = 800,000 grams. 800,000 grams / 31.1 = 25,723 troy oz. So if we assume 1 in 10 ASEs are overweight like the one I got that means the Mint is giving away 2,572 troy ounces away for free! Can someone please tell me if this is correct or if I’m misunderstanding something? I can’t imagine the mint would give away nearly $65,000 in free silver due to some ASEs being overweight. Sorry for such a long post. Thanks!
Did you calibrate the scale each time you weighed each coin? Meaning checking the scale that it states 0?
Yup! I zero’ed it in for every coin. I even double checked by turning it off, then back on, then zeroing again. Every time I put a coin on the scale it read 0.00 until the coin was on. Keep in mind 15 of the 20 weighed perfectly between 31.15-31.2 which is exactly where they should be so I was doing it correctly.
I might be misunderstanding something so I’m not sure if I’m right. I understand that they have to add a little bit of weight (like 31.2g instead of 31.1g) because they are guaranteeing the weight and purity under government authority and want to protect the Mint’s reputation. But an extra 0.2 grams sounds like a bit too much especially considering how many are made. If they only made 500 per year it wouldn’t be a big deal but millions multiplied by 1/5th gram of silver is literally giving away hundreds of pounds of silver for free.
Now I’m going to check to see if this issue is the same with proof ASEs. If any ASE should be slightly overweight it should be a proof.
Yes you’re right. It is only $0.38 in silver per coin. $0.38 x 15,000,000 (2019 mintage) = $5,700,000! But like I said not all of the coins are that overweight. So even if we assume only 1 coin per tube of 20 is overweight like that it’s still $285,000 of free silver given out in 2019 alone. That seems like a problem.