Did I buy the wrong size Rare Earth Neodymium Magnets? HELP!!!!

Look at how tiny it is, will it do me any good? I bought it to test 10oz bar that I'm buying in the future.

 

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Get this.
http://www.amazon.com/SUPER-Strong-...d=1377651630&sr=8-1&keywords=carabiner+magnet

Worth it all the way. It DOES hold over 25 lbs, and its a bit bigger than a quarter.

 

I want to test these out first before I buy that one.

I also bought mine on amazon and it came with 100 of them..such as waste..haha

 

Probably the only thing that matter is if it sticks well to what it should. What are they worth each? perhaps you can send them around to the gang

 

First you will need fake coins or bars to differentiate any effect the magnet might make. I would only resort to this after a failure of specific gravity, physical measurements, accurate determination of weight and measurement, and the infamous "ping test". The magnet test is like trusting a Quija board to give the answer. IMO.

 

Lol.....Don`t give anybody any ideas now.

 

1/2 diameter by 1/4" thick works really good.

 

Find someone who works on computers and ask them for a hard drive magnet. Or take apart an old hard drive to get you own.

Or, visit one of my favorite web sites: www.supermagnetman.com and visit the clearance section. There aren't any there right now that are what I would consider optimal for bullion testing, but there will be sooner or later. I have some that are about 1" x 2" x 1/4" that work perfect. I picked up ten of them from the clearance section for a really good price.

I also have a couple that are about the size of a hockey puck that I paid about $70 each for. They are strong enough that if your finger is between them and you let them collide with each other, you will lose your finger...

ETA: I forgot to mention, the kind of magnet(s) you want are rare earth / Neodymium. They are pretty much the strongest magnets around. Be careful with them though. Even the smaller ones can cause some nasty pinch wounds if you're not careful, and they are also brittle and will often break or chip if you let them collide.

 

But when silver bullion fails the magnet test, it fails it spectacularly! If a .999 silver round sticks to the magnet, or if the magnet has no effect on it, then you KNOW it is fake.

Of couse a magnet test should not be the only test you do, because copper behaves similarly to silver around a magnet. If you have a silver plated copper coin, it will do a reasonably good job of passing a magnet test, but they will fail a weight + dimensions or a specific gravity test. (Reasonably good as in it will not stick to the magnet, and the magnet will have some pull on it, but if you send it down a magnet slide together with a genuine sample, they will usually slide at different speeds since they have different weights and create a different inductance with the magnet(s).)

 

I looked that up and I'd be afraid to use it. The reviews do say that it is SUPER powerful.

For a measly coin I think it is overkill, personally.


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Should work ok. Maybe test the distance on some magnetic objects in comparison to a 100 oz bar.

 

This is the one that I bought
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012AUU84/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I will test it on a 10oz tomorrow.

 

How can a person use it to decide if a coin/round/bar is good or not if they do not have a fake on to compare it with? A positive control as well as a negative control is necessary when one is doing an unfamiliar test of any unknown.

 

If a .999 round sticks to a magnet like it's made of iron, you can be sure it's a fake regardless of wether or not you have a genuine .999 round to compare it to.

Likewise, if a strong magnet has no effect on it whatsoever, then it's no good.

If it passes both tests mentioned above, you can compare it with a known good sample with a magnet test, but I wouldn't rely solely on a magnet test for a "pass". If it passes, then I move on to other testing methods. Depending on the source, I might use several different methods on site, or I might not test at all until I get home.

I have an uncle who has about a hundred silver rounds and he was showing them to me one evening last summer. We got to talking about the magnet test and I told him I had a magnet in the car and I'd be happy to show him how it worked. I didn't want to scratch them, so I passed it within an inch or two over the rounds he had laid out on the table just to show him how it would pull on them a little. When I did, two of the rounds jumped up and stuck to the magnet.

While a magnet test doesn't offer a definitive pass, it can detect some fakes with absolute certainty. After seeing how quick and simple the magnet test is, my uncle was kicking himself in the rear for not knowing about it earlier. The good news is he bought most of these rounds back when silver was around $5 an ounce, so the cost of a good magnet would have been more than he lost by not detecting these two fakes.

All that being said, the magnet test is not quite as simple when testing 90% silver and especially sterling silver. Sterling silver is usually 92.5% silver and the other 7.5% is typically some sort of copper alloy. There are proprietary blends out there that supposedly offer better resistance to tarnishing, or increase the strength of the item. But the only thing it must contain in order to be called sterling silver in the US is 92.5% silver. The other 7.5% could be iron and I have found some sterling silver jewelry that stuck to a magnet, but passed all other tests.

90% silver is a little more of a grey area. If a 90% silver coin sticks to a magnet, of course it's bad, but it's much harder to detect the pull that the magnet exerts on the coin as the coin moves across the magnet or vice versa. This is especially true with dimes and quarters. Silver dollars are about the only coins I send down my magnet slide to test, and I have a fake that will fool most people in a magnet test if they don't test it alongside a known good sample. But if you send them both down the slide at the same time, the fake slides down a little faster than the real thing.

The bottom line is simple: It is prudent to use multiple methods to test bullion. Use each test for what it is good for. A magnet test is good at quickly detecting cheap fakes that contain ferrous metals. But like any other method out there, do not use it as the only test you employ to confirm bullion.

 

Found an old hard drive and I'm almost there. I'm struggling trying to get the magnet out..lol


The magnet is inside this thing: