How hard is it to make a convincing countfeit gold nugget?
PerryHall
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Has anyone ever seen or heard of a counterfeit gold nugget being produced? I can see someone melting some scrap gold and throwing in some .9999 gold coins to raise the fineness of the mix and then casting a gold nugget in a mold or just pouring the mix into a large vat of water to create a random shape of gold. The chunk of gold thus created could then be tumbled with sand and dirt to give the surfaces a natural smooth worn appearance. I'm assuming that larger nuggets are worth more than just their melt value otherwise it wouldn't be worth the effort to create a fake gold nugget. Thoughts?
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"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Comments
Interesting question, wish I had an answer !!!
A friend and I took some questionable substances in the 1980s and melted a JM 5 oz bar of silver with a mapp gas torch. We put a pot of water beneath. The bar turned the prettiest color of red orange, and each large drip would fall into the pot of water and form a nice marble-sized nugget with very "nuggety" surfaces.
Apmex and others sell silver shot in bags. That's similar. But the stuff we made was bigger and looked a lot more like what you think of when you think of "nuggets".
--Severian the Lame
Might work better if you put a little quartz with it.............lame idea actually. In order for nuggets to get much more than the value of the gold they have to be substantial. Not some little 1/2 oz sized nugget. A lot of time which can be more productive somewhere else (like on a stream looking for them?).
bob
@PerryHall Its not hard. If you go online and look at sites that deal in nuggets, they say that their are large nuggets created by using smaller nuggets melted to make them. Small nuggets have no premium however the larger ones do so what some are doing are taking all those small flakes, small nuggets and melting them to make a bigger nugget and getting a big premium from unsuspecting people.
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As the market for nuggets increases (not totally sure why this is happening), created nuggets are becoming more common. I have a couple of real one's I have found years ago...I could likely melt them into one larger piece and it would get a premium over the sale of the two smaller one's. Never really considered it since finding them was the real thrill... Cheers, RickO
The crystalline structure is the telltale.
Is the crystalline structure still visible on a smooth nugget that has spent time in a river bed and whose surfaces have been worn smooth from wear after tumbling with the sand and gravel in the river bed?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
PH, I'll provide a detailed explanation of tells if you'll stop by my table at Balt. this weekend. Table 631. You stopped by my table a couple of years ago, but didn't introduce yourself. Was it my breath?
If you bust out your eye loupe, you will see textures, mostly in the crevices, that are fine and hard to reproduce by melting. Also some matrix or host rock and quarts are nice to have for authenticity of a natural nugget.
If you look at a lot of the you get an eye for it. Globby, chewed bubble gum surfaces are somewhat suspect and also rather boring. I stay away from those.
As far as paying a premium. I think it has to be more than just weight. For me, the nugget has to be some type of Interesing shape and texture and really speak to you, in order to pay more than melt. I've seen crafted nuggets used in Jewelry, not for me. I'm into nuggets as unique mineral specimens.
There are some really informative articles online, I just searched a few and learned a few things.
There are some pretty convincing fakes, but there are some tells, like tiny BBs and air bubbles. Also, looks like some quarts can be added but usually has wrong or non matching textures.