Technical Details of $5 1986-W Statue of Liberty

smacky311

I recently purchased the $5 liberty from bullionexchanges.com. I tested it with sigma metalytics investor as "90% gold bal Cu". It failed the test. I switched it to Gold Eagle and it passed. The redbook says 90% gold 10% copper. The US MINT states 90% gold 10% alloy in legislation only.

I reached out to the US MINT and they essentially refused to comment. They said the alloy differs from Gold Eagle based on the legislation (obviously, I already pointed that out). I also talked to Sigma and they said it's not uncommon for the commemoratives to be difficult to test and the US MINT hasn't been reliably publishing their compositions over time.

I've only had the sigma for a few days, but I've tested about 100 coins. It failed about 5 so far in resistance (passed density) and I don't think any of these are actually fake.

Has anyone tested this coin or a similar US MINT commemorative with an XRF to verify the composition? It would be surprising to see that these are actually composed like gold eagles or at least not the composition everyone seems to think they are.

smacky311

Examples of failed coins:

Peace: NFT Verified, graded by PCGS. NFT came back good when scanned with my phone.
$5 Liberty: Just bought it from a reputable dealer.
1997 Jackie Robinson: again, just bought from a reputable dealer. Failed just the same way and passed the same on the sigma

3 other PCGS graded morgans. Resistivity failed. Density passed.

MsMorrisine

edit in "sigma" to the thread title

derryb

Interesting. Don't have any modern gold comms to test, but my Sigma has never let me down on all other PM coins, and I have tested hundreds if not thousands.

jmski52

derryb, what kinds of fakes have you found?