Gold vs gold plated?

What's the best way to differentiate a gold eagle vs a gold plated eagle? A fellow wants to sell his. Thanks.

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Here are some pics.

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Hard to tell from those pics, but if it were a fake I would say it would have a less defined strike. Even sloppier. It looks real IMO but lately they are making some deceiving fakes. I personally never have tried such methods, but I heard you can acid test it.

 

Weight, diameter, and thickness. Hard to fool all three with gold. Silver, yeah, pretty easy. Gold is too heavy to easily fool.

 

there is also a specific gravity with gold that is not possible to match.

 

Its very possible, just not easy. But, that is what I was getting to with weight, diameter, and thickness. I believe, though, tungsten is a very close sg match to gold. Thankfully most counterfeiters are greedy and choose cheaper materials.

 

Specific gravity and density are pretty much the same thing. Density is the mass (or weight if you aren't being too anal) divided by the volume, so grams per milliliter or pounds per gallon. The specific gravity is a dimensionless number that is the ratio of the test substance to a standard, that is usually water, under the same conditions. Since water is close to 1 over its liquid range, they are pretty much the same.

 

well you can turn lead into gold. if you have a high tech lab facility and just do it for fun. The cost of energy required to remove 3 protons from lead greatly exceeds the value of the gold. read about that here

 

somebody did their chemistry homework

 

Btw, short answer Tabortot, if the weight and diameter are correct, and it does not seem abnormally thick, then usually you are fine.

 

you could also bite the coin and try to bend it. if you bend it the coin is fake. if not you have a gold eagle with teethmarks

You probably shouldn't do that. but if you do you can always talk to camaro. He's the CoinTalk Dentist.

 

Be careful what you wish for. I knew a guy who perfected a cheap process for removing those 3 protons.

He dumped them into a trash bag, but during the night, his beagle ripped open the garbage, they escaped, reversed his process, and turned all his double eagles into fishing weights.

This is absolutely true, here's proof -- a pic of his beagle, Goldfinger:

 

I doubt that is a true story. if it was that guy would be doing that 24/7 he'd be rich right now. like billionaire rich.

EDIT: ahah Goldfinger like that guy from james bond.

 

Nah josh, I'm sure that story is completely true, Doug would never lie.

 

you could also bite the coin and try to bend it. if you bend it the coin is fake. if not you have a gold eagle with teethmarks

Someone didn't do their chemistry home work, you have it backwards.

 

Nothing in the pics screams obvious fake but if you want to be really sure, weigh it. If genuine it should weigh about 33.9 grams.

 

Thanks for all your advice. I will measure, weigh and eye it before purchasing.

 

The size of the coin in the picture looks too large for a 1 ounce gold eagle. Hard to tell though, fuzzy pic. That looks like the size of an ASE (unless you have really small hands).

Medoraman is right, weigh it and measure the diameter/thickness.

BTW, a genuine gold eagle contains one troy ounce of gold, but weighs 1.0909 troy ounces (since the gold is only 22k, not 24k). So if you find that your coin weighs more than the 1 ounce stamped on it, dont freak out.

 

Yeah that would make more sense wouldn't it?

 

It doesnt look right to me...

Tungsten is VERY close..