So I bought an apmex bar and received it today. It was in sealed plastic but I wanted to weigh it to be sure. So I cut the bar out and put it on the scale. It came out 1.01 troy ounces and 31.4 g. Can this be right? I'm starting to think its a fake. Attached are the pictures I took.
Scale shows correct weight for other coins? .01 is not that big of a deal, probably real. Known fakes are 1-2 grams under weight.
How many other bars did you weigh? I have about 4 or 5 10 ounce bars and 2 of them came in a little over. I bought these from the local shop and I trust them. At .01 over not sure I would be too concerned.
They came in a pack of three sealed bars. I cut out the other two and they also weighed out at 1.01 troy ounce.
I have more then a few bars that over weigh by a little. Like someone else mentioned I would be more worried about them weighing less.
to produce a fake silver 1 oz bar within an uncertainty of .1g would be very difficult. If you know the chemistry of metals you would know that Ag or Silver is very nonreactive and will only form oxides which can be burned off from intense heat. In the process of melting down silver a human that is tending to the machine needs to make sure that the proportions are correct to make each bar exactly 1 OZ. Therefore a human error of +- .2 will occur. Another factor is that the furnace has not been heated to the proper temperature which will allow some of the oxygen to remain bonded with the silver which will give you the extra .1g this could be human error but it may also be mechanical.
Silver in the highest portion of the activity series that react with oxygen to form oxides. This also explains why the silver will tarnish or tone into some ugly colors after 2 years if you don't put them in airtites. So the bottom line is do not worry about weight when it is in the error percentage of .2g and always remember to protect your silver with airtite cases to make sure the pure silver does not begin to form oxides. P.S this is my 1,000th post
