Designing the perfect fake gold coin
GOLD GAuGE: When you absolutely, positively must know
In our last post we discussed why tungsten is the ideal metal for faking gold. Now we’re going to discuss the design of said fakes. As the saying goes, “All that glitters is not gold.” Well, in our case, the opposite is true: All that does not glitter is not gold. And tungsten definitely does not glitter. So the first order of business will be to put the tungsten on the inside of whatever coin or bar you’re faking. Imagine a Twinkee: The spongy gold cake hides the creamy, tungsten-y filling.
Of course, the next step, determining the ratio of real surface gold to core tungsten gets a little more complicated. The main priority of any good fake is to be undetected. And just how much real gold you put on the surface of your bar/coin is going to dictate just how undetectable you are.
X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) is considered by many to be the “gold” standard for detecting fakes. Yet XRF is only capable of testing a depth on the order of 10-12 microns. A micron, for those of you unfamiliar, is one one millionth of a meter. So if you’re feeling greedy, maybe you’d be inclined to add only 15-20 microns of gold plating to your tungsten core. The best - and safest - fakes coming out of China boast an impressive 60 microns of surface gold. This will easily beat XRF, as well as the acid test, which assays much shallower depths.
There are other ways to make your tungsten harder to find, too. Let’s say you’re worried about ultrasound testing. Yes, ultrasound has drawbacks - such as the need of a flat testing surface (the three-dimensional reliefs found on coins are particularly challenging) - but at least it’s capable of testing samples all the way through.
Or is it? Despite its penetration depth, Ultrasound can only scan a very narrow cross section of a sample at a time. Most users simply do not have the time to scan every square millimeter of surface area, so they usually take the easiest shortcut available - by scanning once in the middle. And if you’re using a donut-shaped slug of tungsten, it will slip by perfectly undetected.
So the amount of tungsten you think you can get away with all comes down to your tolerance for risk. And with the price of gold running 100x the price of tungsten, either way you choose you stand to clear a very healthy profit.
Unless, of course, your client owns a GOLD GAuGE. Because of GOLD GAuGE’s unique detection technology, any impurities - even less than 1% - will be picked up, regardless of its shape or placement within the sample. There is simply no amount of plating that will fool it.
In other words, if you’re selling fake gold, you’re better off selling to Superman than someone who owns a GOLD GAuGE. Because even X-ray vision has its limits…