What are the stories about fake gold-plated tungsten bars?

physical characteristics

Gold is a fairly heavy metal; its density ranks seventh among all metals on the periodic table and is 19.32 g per cubic centimeter. Specific gravity is expressed differently in different unit systems. In the SI system it is newton per meter cubed, but most often jewelers use a non-systemic unit - grams per centimeter cubed. This is done for convenience, so the density will be equal to the specific gravity.

Gold has the following physical properties:

• high strength;
• thermal conductivity;
• electrical conductivity;
• plastic;
• characteristic shine of metal.

The peculiarity of gold is its inertness. It is this characteristic that allows the metal to have the status of noble. This makes it possible to produce gold jewelry, because it does not oxidize and retains its original appearance for a long time. For the jewelry industry, there is only one disadvantage of gold - its softness. This drawback is circumvented by adding other metals to the alloy - alloying, which changes not only this characteristic, but also others: density, melting point.

Studying the quality of a product using special means

Some properties of different grades of gold are presented in the table.

High electrical conductivity characteristics along with inertness have made gold also an industrial metal. In terms of distribution, it is inferior to silver, but surpasses it in another quality: over time, silver oxidizes, but gold does not.

Read also: What oil for hardening knives

Specific gravity also plays a role in gold mining and in the production of alloys from it. High-quality alloys are obtained only by fusing metals with a small difference in density. Metals with a greater weight than gold can float during melting and form an inhomogeneous structure.

The melting point of gold is 1095 degrees. In addition, there is a hidden melting point. It is measured in kilocalories and represents the energy required to destroy the crystalline structure after the metal has been heated to its melting point. Gold is a diamagnetic metal - a metal that is not attracted to a magnet.

999 gold

In the mid-twentieth century, the United States decided to store the country's gold reserves only in bullion. The weight of the bar was set at 400 troy ounces. Now the mass of a gold bar is 11–13.3 kg. One ounce is 31 grams.

Back in the Middle Ages, the weight of one gold coin was 30 grams, and it turned out that this weight measurement was very convenient for jewelers. It is still in use today. In addition, in the metal stock market, the price of gold is set in dollars per ounce, not per gram. So the mass of gold in the coin is one ounce.

How to determine specific gravity at home?

To do this, you will need scales whose accuracy is about a gram. After weighing into a glass or any other container where there are marks on the volume of liquid, lower the product and see how much the volume has changed. The mass divided by this indicator will be equal to the density of the metal, and accordingly, the specific gravity in units of g/cm?

P.S

To the question “How much gold is currently in vaults in China?” no one can give a definite answer. The situation is mysterious, as is the case with US gold reserves.

China is rapidly increasing its gold reserves every year and the dynamics of gold imports is increasing. According to unofficial data, China now holds more than 3,500 tons of gold, which is much more than Germany's gold reserves. That is why Germany is alarmed by the state of its gold held in American banks. The situation is extremely tense because America may not have German gold. If we assume that gold comes to China from the black markets of Africa and South America, then the volume of Chinese gold may even be more than 7,000 tons. It looks like China now has the largest gold reserves in the world, which are carefully hidden. Isn't this alarming? Is China preparing for the final push to global market dominance?

Metals with similar specific gravity values

There are several metals in nature that have a density similar to gold. These are uranium and tungsten. Uranium will not be used to counterfeit gold for two reasons: firstly, it is radioactive, and secondly, it is not so easy to get. Tungsten is much more suitable for this. But tungsten also differs from gold in hardness and color, which does not allow it to be passed off as gold.

Counterfeiters do things differently. Tungsten ingots are coated with gold on top. But it's not just fake bars that are made this way. It is also used to make gold-plated jewelry. Externally, such products look the same as the real ones, but have different wear resistance characteristics and, accordingly, price. There are also simply tungsten products; they are popular among young people.

Read also: How to properly use polyurethane foam without a gun

Jewelry made from lead, which has a soft structure, is also coated with gold. There is an opinion that lead can be easily distinguished by density or specific gravity, since this indicator is very different for gold. But that's not true. Gold is not used to make jewelry in its pure form, only in alloys.

In different alloys, the density of the product can vary, so products made of lead and 375 gold of the same size can weigh the same. Gold of other samples has a much higher density, with the exception of the rarely used 333 and the popular 417 in the West. The common 585 sample has a specific gravity of 15-16 g per centimeter cubed, which is significantly heavier than lead.

The density of gold is a very important indicator that is important in its mining, jewelry production, and refining. Determining the density can help distinguish a real product from a fake one, of course, if there is no sample on it, however, the sample can also be faked. This indicator is also important in research aimed at discovering new colors of metal.

Very often you can find jewelry with unusual colors; often these are sprayed, but alloys that have a rare color are especially valued. The production of such alloys is complicated precisely by the difference in melting temperatures and densities of the metals that must be added to gold to obtain a certain color.

If you are going to print counterfeit dollars, you must have special paper, otherwise the bills will not look real and can be easily detected by special pens that are used by merchants and banks around the world. If you are going to counterfeit gold bars, you must be sure that they have the same weight and other properties of real gold. In early 2008, millions of gold dollars in the Central Bank of Ethiopia turned out to be fake. What was thought to be real gold bars turned out to be gold-plated steel. Ethiopia tried to sell these “products” to South Africa, but they were sent back because South African experts discovered they were fake. The problem with making good quality counterfeit gold is that gold has a high density. It is almost twice the density of lead and two and a half times the density of steel. We don't usually notice this because small gold pieces don't weigh enough to make the difference obvious, but if you've ever held a standard 12-plus kg gold bar, it's hard to miss: the bar is very heavy. A GLD compliant interbank gold bar weighs approximately 400 ounces (approximately 12.44 kg). A steel ingot of the same size weighs just over 6 kg. There are only two metals that have a density close to gold. The first is depleted uranium, which is cheap if you're a government, but unaffordable for individuals. In addition, uranium is radioactive, which is an additional problem. The second is a real candidate for counterfeiting: tungsten. Tungsten is significantly cheaper than gold (about $30 per kg of 99% pure metal, compared to more than $35,000 per kg of gold). And, remarkably, it has the same density as gold - 19.3 g/cc, accurate to the third decimal place. The main differences are that it is gray in color and that tungsten is much harder than gold (only diamond is harder than tungsten - approx. M.T.). The softness of pure gold is so great that it can be scratched with a fingernail. A high-quality counterfeit gold bar must fully match the color, surface hardness, density, chemical and physical properties of gold. To create this, take a tungsten ingot 1/8 inch (3.17 mm) shorter in every dimension than a GLD bar, place it in a melt of pure gold, so that each gold facet ends up being 1/16 inch thick (about 1 .6 mm). The finished bar will look very natural, it will have the same thud when struck as a real bar, it will weigh exactly the same, and although this is not known for sure, a 1/16 inch layer of pure gold plating will be enough to prevent the X-ray machine from detecting tungsten. You have to drill through the ingot to find out that it is a fake. It costs approximately $50,000 to produce such a high quality counterfeit GLD bar because it contains natural gold, but the sale would still make a significant profit considering that the natural bar costs about $400,000.

Read also: Contactor designation on a single-line diagram

China and its interaction with Western countries

The concept of “Chinese gold” can mean both the gold reserves of the Celestial Empire and the jewelry industry in the state. For the Chinese, gold is not only a profitable way to invest money, but also a symbol of family well-being. Therefore, China is the second country in terms of consumption of gold jewelry. Every woman considers it her duty to have at least one gold piece of jewelry. Chinese gold is characterized by a high pure content. But such products are too plastic and easy to deform. It is not surprising that wealthy Chinese buy gold jewelry in Russia. However, demand for gold in China in the form of jewelry is also declining due to anti-corruption policies and the recent collapse of the yuan.

However, while the countries of the New and Old Worlds are on the brink of crisis, China is slowly and inevitably moving along its own path of development. The exchange rate between the dollar and the price of gold in China must be taken into account when investing money in precious metals. The instability of the global economy could lead to China becoming the world's economic leader and the yuan replacing the dollar. China is still actively developing mines and buying gold abroad, which is a kind of “safety cushion” on the eve of the global crisis. China does not trust Western companies, paper exchanges created by the United States to increase the conversion and rating of its currency. The realization that the system is unstable gave impetus to the manifestation of one’s own initiative in the financial sector, despite the continued cooperation with Western countries on a number of important issues.

The agony of choice

Fashion for jewelry comes and goes, but silver and gold have been the main materials for the production of jewelry from time immemorial. Why these metals?

We have been producing jewelry for several years, so we can say that any of our gold or silver Solomon’s Rings have a soul: they protect their owner and help him. Like any piece of jewelry, it has a special energy and can become a family heirloom, as a valuable and kind thing that preserves the memory and good wishes of its owner.

Once upon a time three thousand years ago, King Solomon himself wore gold and silver jewelry, and in the modern world these metals are considered special. But with tungsten it is not clear - will it remain a popular material or will it be replaced by a new modern alloy in a couple of years?

Time will show. But gold and silver will wait, why should they rush - after all, eternity has no power over them... Genuine jewelry is above fashion.