Asheron Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 (edited) The last time a story of Tungsten-filled gold appeared on the scene was just two years ago, and involved a 500 gram bar of gold full of tungsten, at the W.C. Heraeus foundry, the world's largest metal refiner and fabricator. It also became known that said "gold" bar originated from an unnamed bank. It is now time to rekindle the Tungsten Spirits with a report from ABC Bullion of Australia, which provides photographic evidence of a new gold bar that has been drilled out and filled with tungsten rods, this time not in Germany but in an unnamed city in the UK, where it was intercepted by a scrap metals dealer, and was supplied with its original certificate. The reason the bar attracted attention is that it was 2 grams underweight. Upon cropping it was uncovered that about 30-40% of the bar weight was tungsten. So two documented incidents in two years: isolated? Or indication of the same phenomenon of precious metal debasement that marked the declining phase of the Roman empire. Only then it was relatively public for anyone who cared to find out on their own. Now, with the bulk of popular physical gold held in top secret, private warehouses around the world, where it allegedly backs the balance sheets of the world's central banks, yet nobody can confirm its existence, nor audit the actual gold content, it is understandable why increasingly more are wondering: just how much gold is there? And alongside that - while gold, (or is it GLD?), can be rehypothecated, can one do the same with tungsten? http://silverdoctors.blogspot.ca/2012/03/tungsten-filled-1-kilo-gold-bar.html Edited March 25, 2012 by Asheron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asheron Posted March 25, 2012 Author Share Posted March 25, 2012 Makes me wonder if Chavez likes Tungsten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kraft Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 What difference does it make? Is the gold ever going to be actually used for anything? or just sit around in some vault forever? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erat_forte Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 What difference does it make? Is the gold ever going to be actually used for anything? or just sit around in some vault forever? Not much different from govt QE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkey Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 What difference does it make? Is the gold ever going to be actually used for anything? or just sit around in some vault forever? Really? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperChimp Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 Australian Bullion Dealer ABC Bullion has contacted SD to advise that one of its suppliers has provided them photographic evidence of a tungsten filled 1 kilo gold bar discovered this week. The bar passed a hand-held xrf scan which showed 99.98% pure AU. The tungsten was only discovered when the bar was physically cut in half. After numerous reports of 400oz tungsten filled bars being discovered in Hong Kong, this is the first documented and verified report with photographic evidence that has been made public. Thanks for this. Would a weight test not reveal these problems? I suppose you could avoid this by buying bullion coins rather than bars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
interestrateripoff Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 zerohedge Part of a wider problem? If you get the weight right will anyone ever know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFlibble Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 I love this sort of stuff, it highlights the fragility of the wealth container itself, in this case Gold. Paper bugs have the same issue, Central Banks keep diluting the contents of their container, i.e. fiat money. Basically if it isn't nailed down the fookers will try steal it... Tungsten weights 99.8340% less than Gold for the same area, so to replace 30-40% of a 1Kg bar with Tungsten would mean the total bar weight would differ by 0.6638 - 0.8298g. The reports state 2g of difference, which would indicate the forgers are out by more than 50%. Most probably air or impurities in the Tungsten. The 400oz fake Fort Knox bars are 12.44x larger than these 1Kg bars so with the same stuffing, say 40%, the weight difference would be 24.88g, although I'd suspect these are made better so the difference could be down somewhere close to 10.32g. That said I'd expect the fake 400oz bars to be at least 90% Tungsten meaning the difference will be much more noticeable. At the end of the day you cannot cheat physics. Only way to cheat Gold weight & size is with a Tungsten & Platinum mix (99.8509% Tungsten, 0.1491% Platinum) wrapped in thick Gold, but that won't cheat an ultrasound. Calculations based on the data from Wiki. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Take Me Back To London! Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 We had this come to light 2 years ago when one of Hereaus's old sweats did not like a particular 500g gold bar that came from a bank, it was cut open and it was found to have tungsten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChumpusRex Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 (edited) Thanks for this. Would a weight test not reveal these problems? I suppose you could avoid this by buying bullion coins rather than bars. Tungsten has almost precisely the same density as gold. Done properly, a weight test or even density test would not be able to discriminate between a gold bar, and one which has been debased with tungsten, unless performed to a very high accuracy (and if the bar can be thickened slightly (e.g. by plating on another 1-2 grams of gold) then this would be very difficult to spot. There are plenty of other ways in which the gold can be tested, however. Electrical resistance testing and ultrasound being the easiest and most difficult to cheat. Edited April 1, 2012 by ChumpusRex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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