Fake Silver Coins & Bullion? Learn How to Tell for Certain

hello everybody silver picker here and welcome to the silver picker squad now today's video is super super important for anybody that buys gold or silver coins so that means silver stackers precious metal investors and the coin collectors alike you got to watch this because it will save you a ton of a ton of money and protect you from getting ripped off so those of you who have watched my videos in the past know that one thing that I cannot stand is scammers that try and take advantage of new coin collectors and new silver and gold investors it drives me nuts and the industry is riddled with people like that on eBay Craigslist other websites all over the place there are people that are trying to take while advantage of you guys and I want to try and help protect you so if you haven't seen some of the other videos in this series check them out over here I talked about how did it turn the authenticity of gold and silver and coins and whatnot so check those out but what we're gonna be concentrating on today are these these coins these coins right here I bought from wish calm which is a Chinese online marketplace that is known to be riddled with counterfeits whether it's coins or trading cards all sorts of stuff I bought these specifically to share with you guys to show you exactly what the difference between any real silver coin is and a fake one so the method that we're gonna go over today is probably the most fundamental method for determining the authenticity of your government issue gold and silver coins so without further ado let's get right to it so here are some of the coins that we're going to be looking at today that I already know are inauthentic but we're gonna use them as examples to show you how you can figure out whether your coins are authentic or not but before we get to that we need to take a look at some tools of the trade you're gonna need in order to do this so let's move these aside for now and take a look at we're gonna need [Music] so first tool the trade no this is not a coin this is a neodymium magnet it is a very very strong magnet inexpensive to buy but is it the single best first line of defense when you are trying to authenticate coins next is this this is a digital diamond scale jewelers coin collectors precious metals investors all use these to measure very very small increments of gold and silver and to determine their authenticity now you've seen you use this particular scale and many many videos over the years but because it only goes to one decimal place I decided it's time for an upgrade so out with the old and in with the new this is one of the best rated digital scales on Amazon and I absolutely love it so I can't wait to share it with you guys while we authenticate some of these coins next thing you're gonna need is one of these now it looks like a spy opening this thing now it looks like a really fancy tool over here and it is it is a fancy tool but it's not that expensive they have ones that are really expensive but this one is an amazing amazing quality piece but not that expensive and what is it it is a digital caliper set and this is going to be used as one of the other elements to determining whether the coins are real or fake now if you don't want to get one of these though I really recommend that you do this guy will also suffice this is just a standard little ruler and you'll be able to use it and to do all the same things that a caliper does but it'll be a little bit more cumbersome and not quite as accurate I would recommend getting the calipers I mean it's 20 bucks you can't go wrong with 20 bucks when you're talking about authenticating coins that are worth thousands and last but not least you will need a reference guide whether that's online or a physical copy of a Kraus book or a u.s. red book you gotta have a trustworthy reference material that will tell you all of the different dimensions and specs of the coins so now that we've got all the different tools of the trade let's get into actually authenticating something coins that I bought from that Chinese e-commerce site that's known for selling fake coins and the reason I got them is because what better way to learn about determining the authentic City of coins when you can have a real example of a forgery so we're going to do is we're not going to test all of these but we're going to take a few selections and compare them to real coins and show you exactly how to identify the real one versus the fake one with pretty much a hundred percent accuracy so why don't we start with this guy the American Silver Eagle this fake American Silver Eagle bullion round is an amazing amazing study aid for learning how to determine whether a piece of bullion or a coin is a real piece of silver or not however it's only half the equation the other half of course is this a real American sort of Silver Eagle now in my opinion I think the best way to learn about determining authenticity of coins is to look at one fake piece and one real piece and then you can start to learn about the nuances that show the differences in similarities so why don't we take a look at the first test the magnet test now what do you do with the magnet test is you take the magnet and you tap it against the coin to see if it sticks or not now an important critical thing to know is that no precious metals are magnetic that means gold and silver will not stick to a magnet now there are some magnetic properties of these precious metals but that's something we'll save for another video but for simplicity sake just know that no gold or silver coin will ever ever stick to the magnet so we tap our neodymium magnet on this real American Silver Eagle and nothing we tap it over here however and boom it sticks so strongly that it's even hard to pry apart this is of course a fake it is such a bad fake because even most of the most novice coin collectors and silver investors know that no real silver piece is going to be magnetic so this is of course a really really bad fake you've never by that point now this test doesn't tell us that this coin is silver it just tells us that if not made of a magnetic piece of material it does tell us of course that this is not silver now what about more sophisticated fakes a lot of the fakes coming out of China now are not as bad as this and in fact are much more sophisticated let's take a look at these guys these are two Morgan Silver Dollars one is real from my collection and one is fake that I bought off this Chinese website tap it with the magnet nothing tap it with the magnet nothing does that mean they're both real well not so fast that's why you have to do a lot more tests because the magnet test is not a definitive test it's just a good first line of defense for weeding out the worst fakes so let's move on to test number two and that is the weight test so for the weight test we're going to be using our scale over here so we just open it up now it's calibrated 4 ounces tri ounces penny weights etc but we're going to keep it on the gram setting today and the reason is because I just like to work in grams but you can do you of course now what you need to do before you start weighing anything you need to look at a reputable resource that will tell you what the weight of the coin should be so if you take a look in your US coins Redbook or your Kraus guide or even on a website like new Mistah something where it's reputable and you can trust it you take a look at what the weight is supposed to be so the weight of a Morgan Silver Dollar is 26 point 73 grams so first let's take a look at the real one this one is the real one from my collection and of course it's a little worn so it may come out a little underweight but that should be okay too so let's take a look twenty six point four seven grams okay so it's a very very slight underweight reading but it's in the normal range because it's just a Warren points of some of the metal of course has worn off over the years I mean it is from 1879 right but let's take a look at the difference between a real one and a fake one now remember this wasn't magnetic 22.8 1 grams that is a huge discrepancy if you see a Morgan Silver Dollar and it is not shaved down or cut in half and it weighs 22 grams you know that it is fake real coin with somewhere just a couple decimals off fake coin with less where 22 point 81 grams I don't think so and you can tell for sure that that coin is not real so we know that this coin failed the weight test and this coin passed it has to pass all of these tests in order to be determined real not just the magnet test not just the weight test but that brings us also to the next test which is beat diminish in this test so to illustrate the dimensions test we're going to need two things we're gonna need the calipers or a ruler and a coin to test in this case we're going to use the Krugerrand now a real program which unfortunately i don't have an example to show you has a diameter of 32 point seven millimeters and of the thickness of two point eight five millimeters so what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at this caliper and this coin and we're gonna see whether it passes either those dimensions tests so let's open up the jaws of our caliper and we're gonna place very carefully because we don't want to scrape this in case it is a real coin we're gonna see what the dynamic diameter is now according to this the diameter is thirty nine point nine and one millimeters that is way way way bigger than the 33 magnitude in the 32 point seven meters that it's supposed to be so we already know that this thing is absolutely positively not real but let's take a look at the thickness as well so let's scale this down again we don't want to be we don't want to scratch it in case it is a real coin so we're gonna be very careful and we have a reading of 3.26 millimeters very very far off from the 2.85 so we know without a doubt that this coin too is a forgery so here are the three coins that we looked at today right the first one failed the magnet test the second one felt the weight test and the third one failed the dimensions test now if a coin fails any of these tests we know for sure that it's not real but if a coin passes a test it doesn't mean that it's real unless it passes the other two tests so before we log off let's take a look at a real American Silver Eagle and take a look at all three tests and show that it does indeed pass and we can tell that it is indeed a real authentic American Silver Eagle okay test number one the magnet test easy-peasy japanesey doesn't stick so we know that it's not the worst of the worst fakes and the weight test an American Silver Eagle is supposed to weigh 31.1 grams so let's take a look now there's of course a little bit of a variance but let's see if we get close thirty-one point two five grams that is totally totally normal if a tiny tiny weight variance of 0.15 grams you're not gonna have a problem there that doesn't mean that it is fake this is really really close and that is good enough and now finally because it has passed the magnet test and it has passed the weight test it must still past the dimensions test in order for us to determine that this is indeed an authentic coin so what is the diameter of a real American Silver Eagle the diameter is supposed to be forty point six millimeters there we go forty point five five millimeters that is about as exact as you're gonna get it let's take a look at the thickness now again whenever I do the thickness I'm always very careful not to scratch or damage the coin alright it's supposed to be a thickness of two point nine eight millimeters we've got two point eight nine that is very very close and again within the normal tolerances so there you have it we've got ourselves an authentic American Silver Eagle and an inauthentic one okay so now that you've seen all these tests you guys are now empowered to make your own informed decisions about whether the coin or boolean around that you're about to buy is indeed really silver or not and that is really really great but there's one little caveat that I still need to offer before we close out this video and that is we have only learned how to determine whether a coin is fake or real regarding its silver content so for something like this a bullion round like an American Silver Eagle a counterfeiter will use a metal that's cheaper than silver in order to make his profit right so he's gonna make a coin out of let's say stainless steel or out of nickel something much much cheaper than silver however if we look at something like this this is that fake 1888 Carson City mint Morgan Silver Dollar now this one was of course also not made of silver but because this coin has such a premium the counterfeiter could have made this coin out of silver and it would have passed all our tests because the density of silver would allow them to make the actual coin the actual dimensions and weight of the real coin so we were fortunate to find out that this was a fake because it failed the tests and it's not made out of silver but how did the counterfeiter made it with real silver with the same 90% silver content that the real ones made out of these coins would have actually said that the coin is indeed real so that's why there is still a lot of nuance that goes into authenticating numismatic coins because you want to make sure that you actually are getting a real numismatic coin if you're paying far far above the silver content but we'll leave that for another video so anyway I hope you really enjoyed this video and I hope you learned from it and I hope that it ends up saving you a lot of money and a lot of headache in the future so if you like this video please give it a big thumbs up hit the subscribe button in the little belt next to it if you haven't yet and come join us next time in the silver picker squad where we learn about all sorts of things related to numismatics silver stacking and just how to make an extra buck on your own terms so we've got a lot of great stuff coming down the pike I hope you enjoy stay tuned and until next time silver pick her out [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Silverpicker

Views: 10,667

Rating: 4.9528618 out of 5

Keywords: Silver, gold, coins, coinage, numismatics, numismatist, collector, silver stacker, stacker, silver bug, ASE, Eagle, cent, penny, dime, quarter, nickel, half, halves, scrap, 14k, 18k, 24k, 999, sterling, crh, coin roll hunting, Morgan dollar, peace dollar, bullion, silver bullion, coin collecting, coin collection, picking, thrifting

Id: 0jZQAd-Oif8

Length: 16min 13sec (973 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 23 2019