Simple Home Tests to Determine Whether Your Bullion Is Real or Fake

"Here is a very informative article from one of my readers. Jerrell asked if I would post it in efforts to help readers identify whether or not your precious metals are real. Jerrell is from Money Metals Exchange. Money Metals Exchange, is the national precious metals dealer that was just voted #1 in the U.S., partly because they publish a large amount of high-quality content."                                                                                                                                                -Urban Man

Simple Home Tests to Determine Whether Your Bullion Is Real or Fake

Just about all bullion investors worry about counterfeits. Those concerns are magnified when someone is buying for the first time. Stories about fake coins from Asia and gold bars drilled and filled with Tungsten have been in the headlines recently. But the truth is, counterfeiting is just about as old as the concept of money itself.

Fortunately, making phony coins or bars isn't easy. The equipment involved is significant – it takes far more than a color printer and the right paper. And making fakes good enough to pass a few simple tests is darn near impossible.

Some testing equipment, such as mass spectrometers and sonogram machines, are expensive and impractical for the typical person to use.

However, here are some lower budget ways you can determine whether or not the bullion you hold is genuine:

Size and Weight

Gold and silver are extraordinarily dense metals – much denser than just about any base metal (even lead and mercury in the case of gold). That means just about all fakes that weigh correctly will be too large in diameter and/or thickness. Or they will be underweight in order to achieve the right diameter and thickness. Simply comparing the diameter and thickness of the coin in question with others known to be genuine could be enough to put you at ease.

If not, an inexpensive set of calipers and a jeweler's scale are a good way of checking. Every coin or round is produced with close tolerances in terms of diameter, thickness, and weight. You can find these dimensions on the “Specifications” tab on our coin and round product pages.

Investors might also consider Fisch Testers. Genuine coins will be both small enough in diameter and thin enough to fit through a slot in the tool, while remaining heavy enough to tip the tool on its 

fulcrum. Simple and very effective.

Sound or “Ping” Testing

Authentic gold and silver coins chime when struck and the difference is notable versus base metals.

Base metal coins will sound duller and their ring will be shorter -- much like the difference between clinking crystal versus glass champagne flutes.

Try balancing the coin on your fingertip and strike it with another coin. This video provides a good demonstration.

Investors with an iPhone can also install the CoinTrust application and test a short list of the most popular gold and silver coins by gently spinning them on a hard surface with the phone’s microphone positioned nearby.

Android users can install the Bullion Test app. Choose the coin from a drop down list, press the microphone button, then balance the coin on your fingertip and strike it with a fingernail or another coin. Results are instant and accurate.

Magnetism

The above video on ping testing also references another simple technique for using a magnet to identify fakes. Gold and silver are non-magnetic. Placing a strong magnet on a coin and tipping it to watch whether the magnet slides off, as it should, or sticks, like it would to a counterfeit, requires only an inexpensive magnet and a few seconds. (Note that some base metals used in counterfeiting are also non-magnetic, so we suggest doing this in conjunction with some other techniques listed.)

Thermal Conductivity Testing for Silver

Silver is one of the best conductors of thermal energy found in nature. That makes it easy to test silver bullion using nothing more than an ice cube. Place an ice cube on top of a silver bar, coin, or round, and you should see it begin melting almost instantly as heat is quickly transferred. Holding a coin or round between fingers or in the palm of your hand makes the results even more noticeable as the silver rapidly cools to your touch.

Acid Testing

Investors can purchase inexpensive acid test kits for gold and silver. Watching the color change in a drop of acid can reveal whether or not a sample is genuine. However, acids should be handled carefully. Your items can be permanently discolored.

Since bullion coins, rounds, and bars are valued for their metal content, not their beauty, discoloration is unlikely to reduce the value of your bullion by more than a small amount. But it’s still wise to use acid testing sparingly and with caution.

A Word about Tungsten Fakes

Some of the hardest to detect counterfeit gold products involve tungsten. Tungsten’s density is close to that of gold, and it is relatively inexpensive. Here are some of the best ways to avoid problems:

Avoid large gold bars. 10-ounce and larger gold bars are among the easiest to tamper with as they can be drilled, filled with tungsten, and then plugged again with gold. This is more difficult with units 1 oz and smaller. Tungsten is extraordinarily hard whereas gold is soft. This means tungsten is very difficult to use in minting or fabricating small items. It is brittle, and stamping it with a design will result in coins with less detail unless it has been plated with a thick layer of gold.

Ring testing as outlined above should still offer defense against tungsten fakes.

If the deal is too good to be true, it probably is. Never buy gold bullion below its melt value unless you know and trust its origins.

Buy silver. No metal shares a similar density to silver, making it even more difficult to make good counterfeits than with gold. Plus, the financial incentive is lower.

Recently some of the more prominent mints and refiners have begun employing technology to mark products with seals that assure authenticity. For example, Sunshine Minting rounds and bars carry a seal that reads “VALID” when viewed using their proprietary lens and oriented correctly.

Investors can expect this sort of technology to be more widely used in the coming years. (Note: the lens carries a cost of around $20.00 and needs to be purchased separately from the metal itself.)

As mentioned above, the best defense against fake bullion is to buy from a reputable dealer. Money Metals Exchange sources products directly from well-regarded mints and refiners and employs good quality controls. That is why we can confidently stand behind every product we sell – guaranteeing authenticity, weight, and purity.

Clint Siegner is a Director at Money Metals Exchange, perhaps the nation's fastest-growing dealer of low-premium precious metals coins, rounds, and bars. Siegner, a graduate of Linfield College in Oregon, puts his experience in business management along with his passion for personal liberty, limited government, and honest money into the development of Money Metals' brand and reach. This includes writing extensively on the bullion markets and their intersection with policy and world affairs.

"Urban Man says buyer beware!"

Urban Man

The Coming Collapse

"Here is an interesting article I just read. You read it and you be the judge.- Urban Man"

Crash in September?

Very possible say's Bob Rinear. Most people, prepper advisers or financial analysts know that a collapse is coming. Most won't go on record predicting a specific time frame. Well, Mr. Rinear comes as close as I've seen with is article below. But in any event, it's hard to prep and prep hard day by day, week by week and month b month. It is helpful to get "spun up" in a controlled manner to have a date to be finished or at least situated for. This article does that,...gives us until September of this year to be ready.

"Crash in September?"

 
If you've been reading us for any length of time you know that I've mentioned that we might see some interesting events in the September/October time frame. That has prompted people to ask “why then?” which is a very good question. But the reasons for my observations will cause some people to question my sanity. That’s okay, it’s been done a million times before.

Let me lay out some ground work before we get into some pretty interesting discussion.

Every one of you lives through cycles, and most of them we don’t even pay attention to, they’re just “the way it is”. For instance you know with NO doubt that when you go to bed tonight, that tomorrow the sun will rise. It has for billions of years and will continue to for billions more.

That’s a cycle. You also have no problem declaring that as sure as the sun will rise, your winter will be followed by spring, which is followed by summer and then autumn will appear. That’s a never ending cycle as the earth makes its travels around the sun.

Then there’s the cycle of the zodiac. As the earth circles around the sun, the stars we observe in the night sky change. As the seasons progress it appears as though we’re traveling through the different constellations, again this is a cycle as it looks like the sun passes through the 12 star signs. Then there’s the 26000 year cycle of how the earth (which spins like a top) wobbles on its axis, only to return to where it started.

In economics, there’s many many “cycles” that have been observed, from the typical “boom/bust” to the longer wave theories. Take for instance the “Kondratieff wave”. It was developed by a Russian economist named Nikolai Kondratiev, and as Wikipedia has noted, his economic theories got him into so much trouble with the Russian government that he was eventually executed because of them. 

This is how it works….

Kondratiev’s analysis described how international capitalism had gone through many such “great depressions” and as such were a normal part of the international mercantile credit system. The long term business cycles that he identified through meticulous research are now called “Kondratieff” cycles or “K” waves.

The K wave is a 60 year cycle (+/- a year or so) with internal phases that are sometimes characterized as seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter:

Spring: a new factor of production, good economic times, rising inflation

Summer: hubristic ‘peak’ war followed by societal doubts and double digit inflation

Autumn: the financial fix of inflation leads to a credit boom which creates a false plateau of prosperity that ends in a speculative bubble

Winter: excess capacity worked off by massive debt repudiation, commodity deflation & economic depression. A ‘trough’ war breaks psychology of doom.

Well according to K wave theorists, we’re in the winter phase, something that should last until about 2020, with a serious depression hitting before then.

Of course there are many other examples of “waves” or cycles, including Elliot waves, Kress cycles, Proprietary cycles, energy wave cycles, etc. But there’s another one that’s making headlines lately and it’s called the “Shemitah” which is based on Biblical interpretation.

The basic idea is this…when God told Moses how things had to work, there was a “rest period” on the 7th year of the cycle. So you’d sow and reap for 6 years then let the ground lay “fallow” or dormant on the 7th year. It also corresponded with the dismissal of debt. Every 7th year on the last day of they cycle month of Tishri, all debts had to be discharged, which tended to lead to economic upheavals. In fact the last day of the cycle has it’s own name called Elul which is the 29th day.

Well, the Shemitah years get a lot of press simply because they’re very interesting. I personally don’t believe in random coincidence, I believe in synchronicity which I can best describe as “coincidence with a purpose”. Well, when you look at the years that correspond with the Shemitah, you do indeed see some incredible correlations. Almost every major economic “shaking” has landed in a Shemitah year cycle, with the bulk of the big events clustered around a 3 week period at the end of a Shemitah cycle year.

So what have we seen happen in Shemitah cycle years? Well the biggest stock market crashes on record happened during them. On September 17th, 2001 (which was Elul 29 on the Jewish calendar), we witnessed the greatest one day stock market crash in U.S. history up to that time.

At the end of the next Shemitah year in 2008, another horrifying stock market crash took place.

On September 29th, 2008 the Dow plummeted 777 points, which still today remains the greatest one day stock market crash of all time. (Barring “flash crashes” of course) Oh and guess what? It landed on Elul 29, the last day of the calendar. But it wasn't just 2001 and 08 that gets interesting. 

The market crash of 30/31, was another “record” time for the period. The recession/market melts of 1973, 1980, 1987, 1994 and 2001 come to mind. All of them were Shemitah years. The mind boggling event of 9/11 was at the last week of a shemitah year in the month of Tishri. That’s quite the coincidence.

I could go on an on about the Shemitah because frankly there’s simply too many events to ignore the fact that because of or in spite of, things tend to happen in those years. For instance this year Elul 29 will fall on September 13th, but that’s a Sunday right? Right. 

However that means the market stops trading on 9/11 ( we've seen a total halt to all trading on 9/11 once before) however the Globex global markets do trade on Sunday evening the 13th. Wait it gets even stranger….On Sept 13th, the Biblical Elul 29 we also get a Solar eclipse. The last time that happened where a solar event landed on Elul 28 at the end of a cycle we got the 1987 “Black Monday” the following days.

So am I saying I think something really wicked could happen this Sept/October because it falls on a Shemitah cycle and Tishri month? Not exactly. When you look at markets you have to have an “assemblage of information” to make your decisions. Just like when we enter a trade we want a stock with 1) a reason it might want to go up 2) a defined level it must cross to prove it wants up and 3) a flat to rising market to help it. Well when looking at the big picture, we also have to line up more than one thing. So consider the following….

This September is indeed the end of the Shemitah cycle and Tishri is the last month of that cycle. Things do tend to happen on or around those dates. We have a Solar eclipse scheduled to happen on that very same day. Interesting. Then we add in the Kondratieff cycle which says we’ll be in the “winter” of the big cycle, often leading to recessions/depressions, etc.

The Kress cycle says that the end of 2014 – the 2017 period, should cause shaking. The Armstrong cycle suggests trouble as it peaks in October of 2015 and leads to massive trouble by 2020. The Elliot wave cycle suggests a period of turmoil.

All these interesting cycles suggest some trouble on the way. While you can’t place 100% confidence in ANY humanistic cycle, when you add up how many of them point to troubles, you should at least take note. But it isn't simply moon cycles or K cycles or Shemitah’s that have me pondering some autumn troubles. We've got global Geo-political issues that are coming front and center too.

The IMF is going to re-balance it’s weightings of the SDR’s this September. We know that China wants in in the worst way. If they get the Yuan included in the basket, it will be one more shot to the stomach of the US dollar, a currency no one seems to want to trade in any more.

The Greeks got an extension of their economic woes put off until June where we’re going to have to endure more back and forth bickering with the European Union. Could that ultimately lead to a Greek exit around September?

I’m on record saying the Fed’s will indeed raise rates this year. While largely symbolic, there will be reaction to it. If it doesn't happen in June, the next likely time slot would be September. Interesting? Maybe. What about Ukraine? There are some who believe that NATO might make a push to get closer to Russia’s borders before the harsh winter season sets in. The month of September has been mentioned a few times. Will Russia sit back and let NATO arms park on their doorstep? Not likely.

Here’s the bottom line folks. We all know this economy is held together with Duct tape, hollow promises, derivatives and printed money. We also know it is going to end one day. We know the world is a very dangerous place with major tensions over Ukraine, Syria and Iran. We know that any number of things could be the “one” that causes a great shaking. From where I sit, the most logical time for something to happen would be the 90 days from August through October. Will it? I have no idea. We could go through the period with nary a hiccup. Or we could see a massive crash. I just find it all worthy of note, and take my guess that we “very well could” see an event in that time period.

Urban Man

Chapter 29: Expanding Knowledge Through Reading

Taking the advice from my Survivalist friends, I have been reading several good books on prepping and survival. Although most are fiction, they are written in such as way that the scenarios can actually take place or are taken from real events.

I recently read Liberators from James Wesley Rawles and found it to be riveting.

What I Learned From Rawles' "Liberators"

James Wesley, Rawles (really have no idea why the comma is before his last name) is the pre-eminscent author of Survival Prepper Books. His series of "Patriots", "Survivors", "Founders", "Expatriates", and the latest, "Liberators", are all educational as well as entertaining. If you simply read these books to get ideas on how to prepare, they are worth it.

This is what I have learned or think I have learned from the latest book "Liberators". I won't go into the story line so I won’t ruin it for some of you who haven't read it.

Precious Metals. I need more "junk silver". I has a decent amount of one ounce Silver rounds and a few ounces of Gold, but minimal junk silver. Junk Silver is older U.S. coinage which contain some percentage of silver. Some of these may have a collectible or numismatic value greater than the value of the silver content. But the idea for preppers is to have some on hand in order to purchase goods, material and services when fiat currency is in free fall or no longer accepted at all. These "junk silver" coins are:

Dollars:

Morgan (1878–1921) -- 90-percent silver
Peace (1921–1928 and 1934–1935) -- 90-percent silver

Half-Dollars:

Liberty Head "Barber" (1892–1915) -- 90-percent silver
Walking Liberty (1916–1947) -- 90-percent silver
Franklin (1948–1963) -- 90-percent silver
Kennedy (1964) -- 90-percent silver
Kennedy (1965–1970) -- 40-percent silver

Quarters:

Liberty Head "Barber" (1892–1916) -- 90-percent silver
Standing Liberty (1916–1930) -- 90-percent silver
Washington (1932, 1934–1964) -- 90-percent silver

Dimes:

Liberty Head "Barber" (1892–1916) -- 90-percent silver
Winged Liberty Head "Mercury" (1916–1945) -- 90-percent silver
Roosevelt (1946–1964) -- 90-percent silver

Nickels:

Jefferson "Wartime" (1942 (partial)-1945) -- 35-percent silver

Manuals and Books on digits. 

I have a decent amount of books on thumb drives and can be opened and viewed on a computer,..e.g..laptop, pda, tablet, nook or kindle. I am lacking military manuals. I have some, but since many are free for downloading, I am going to secure many of these onto thumb drives. 

I am just going to re-dedicated myself to storing more as those 16 and 32 gb thumb drive can contain a lot! I need to store some more thumb drives even the very small ones, no bigger than a finger nail, that are easy to conceal. You never know when you need to conceal digital information through hostile people at check points.Some of the books and manuals I'm going to download (already have started) are:

FM 1-02, OPERATIONAL TERMS AND GRAPHICS
FM 2-0, INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS
FM 2-19.4, BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS
FM 2-22.2, COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
FM 2-22.3, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTOR OPERATIONS
FM 2-91.4 3/20/2008 INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT TO URBAN OPERATIONS
FM 2-91.6 10/10/2007 SOLDIER SURVEILLANCE AND RECONNAISSANCE FUNDAMENTALS
FM 3-05.70 5/17/2002 SURVIVAL
FM 3-11.4 6/2/2003 MULTISERVICE TACTICS, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCEDURES FOR NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL, AND CHEMICAL (NBC) PROTECTION
FM 3-11.5 4/4/2006 MULTISERVICE TACTICS, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCEDURES FOR CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL, RADIOLOGICAL, AND NUCLEAR DECONTAMINATION
FM 3-11.9 1/10/2005 POTENTIAL MILITARY CHEMICAL/BIOLOGICAL AGENTS AND COMPOUNDS
FM 3-22.9 8/12/2008 RIFLE MARKSMANSHIP, M16-/M4-SERIES WEAPONS
FM 3-24.2 4/21/2009 TACTICS IN COUNTERINSURGENCY
FM 3-34.214 7/11/2007 EXPLOSIVES AND DEMOLITIONS
FM 3-75 5/23/2012 RANGER OPERATIONS
FM 3-90-2 3/22/2013 RECONNAISSANCE, SECURITY, AND TACTICAL ENABLING TASKS
FM 4-25.11 12/23/2002 FIRST AID
FM 6-02.53 8/5/2009 TACTICAL RADIO OPERATIONS
FM 21-10 6/21/2000 FIELD HYGIENE AND SANITATION
TC 2-22.7 2/18/2011 GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE HANDBOOK
TC 2-22.82 3/21/2011 BIOMETRICS-ENABLED INTELLIGENCE
TC 3-22.10 9/30/2013 SNIPER TRAINING AND OPERATIONS
FM 31-21, GUERILLA WARFARE
ST 31-91B, ARMY SPECIAL FORCES MEDICAL HANDBOOK

Caches. I've got to plan to have better cache material on hand and to upgrade the one Bug Out support cache I have emplaced. A roll of thick mil plastic, some pre-cut section of PVC with caps ought to do. I have many surplus GI ammunition cans on hand and I'll be on the lookout for more if they are cheap, but it push comes to Crunch, I'll be okay with what I have.

I have been getting some food grade feed buckets that contains some type of livestock feed from a friend of mine. It's been about 6 months since I last talked to him, so I'll make a mental not to drop him an e-mail and see if he has any more buckets to give away. These can be used for caches as well, but my biggest use is to storage. 

Plus, I have several 3 to 5 day food buckets ready, full of diverse food items, coffee, rice, beans, honey, peanut butter, hard crackers, bullion cubes, etc. So I don't have to unpack bulk storage items during movement. Besides these buckets work well as seats or small tables and the contents can be emptied to collect water in.

Gear. I need to up my cold weather gear. I have the sleeping bags, ground cloths, long underwear, gloves, hats, neck gaiters but I am lacking in heavier coats and tentage. During a significant enough collapse, you may face a long movement in order to get somewhere safe.

Safes places on your bug out route will likely be remote areas that don't offer much shelter. Cold camps,e.g. without a fire, will possibly be the norm and un-survivalable without decent cold weather clothing.

Ethics. Rawles, based on his pretty deep Christian beliefs, infuses his novels and characters with this belief. Makes for interesting ethical dilemmas. How you treat any refugees who are in need. How you feel about killing - about killing people who would kill you if they had the chance; or killing people who needed killing, but you could avoid killing.

What about lying? Is it okay to lie, perhaps imparting a cover story, to authorities?

Basically, the questions of ethics has to be raised within any survival group to find out what individuals beliefs are and what the group norms and procedures will be. Certainly, these may change after the onset of any collapse and the degree and type of threats facing the groups, but this needs to be an area of concern for any group. And it's not simply all having the same religion.

I have many deeply Christian friends, and I would venture that the spread of acceptable ethics are pretty wide between these individuals.

Anyway, while I enjoy the Rawles' novels and the series of novels from A. American (the Home series) and Joe Nobody (the Holding Their Own series), I always read the book from the perspective of placing myself in the character's positions and scenarios and think what would I have done.

It turned out to be a good exercise as I was able to develop the list above on where I should get better in my preps.

Civil Unrest Coming Soon to a Neighborhood Near You

Economist: Financial Collapse Will Cause Civil Unrest to Erupt in America by 2016

 

Rampant corruption combined with economic woes to spark "revolution".  Economist Martin Armstrong is predicting that rising resentment against the status quo as a result of economic inequality is likely to cause a serious political uprising before 2016.

 

“It looks more and more like a serious political uprising will erupt by 2016 once the economy turns down. That is the magic ingredient. Turn the economy down and you get civil unrest and revolution,” writes Armstrong.

 

In making the forecast, the economist cites the case of 90-year-old World War 2 veteran Arnold Abbott, who is being targeted by authorities in Fort Lauderdale for defying a newly passed city ordinance that criminalizes feeding the homeless, an example says Armstrong of how “laws in the USA have simply gone nuts.”
 

Armstrong, who correctly predicted the 1987 Black Monday crash as well as the 1998 Russian financial collapse, asserts that the downfall of the system will be its inability to gauge the anger that Americans currently feel towards their government.

 

“You just cannot make up this stuff. And the Democrats cannot figure out that the people are getting pissed-off at who is ever in office? And what about the police?” asks Armstrong. “Is this just turning into thugs with badges who just enforce whatever law some nut-job politician writes? What if they passed a Herod type law to curb population and decree that everyone must kill their first-born. When does reason ever return to the police force these days? They no longer protect the people – they protect the politicians against the people.”

 

As we reported back in August, the U.S. Army is preparing for civil unrest in the United States. A 132-page document entitled U.S. Army Techniques Publication 3-39.33: Civil Disturbances outlines how troops may be required to deal with “unruly and violent crowds” where it is “necessary to quell riots and restore public order.”

 

Riots which rocked Ferguson, Missouri earlier this year and threaten to reignite should Officer Darren Wilson be acquitted illustrate how single events can spark sustained social unrest.

 

However, more widespread dislocation is only likely to occur in the aftermath of an economic collapse which impacts a huge number of Americans. As we have seen in numerous countries across Europe, including in Belgium just today, crippling austerity measures combined with anemic economic growth have set the stage for violent unrest.

 

In a February 2013 article entitled Why the Banking Elite Want Riots in America, we outlined why the political class is perfectly content to engineer and exploit social unrest as a means of paving the way for the IMF to engage in its tried and tested method of asset stripping and looting a nation.

 

With polls showing some 74% of Americans are already angry or dissatisfied with the government, further economic hardship could prove to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. 

[source: Paul Johnson, InfoWars.com]

Urban Man reply:  I believe this article hits it on the head. Just look how people reacted on "black Friday" sales at the local shopping malls.

Urban Man