Tungsten filled Gold bars

Tungsten filled Gold bars



At ABC Bullion we always recommend that you only purchase bullion from a well established dealer whose core business is bullion trading. See the Common Traps section of our website to help avoid issues when buying bullion.

Many pundits in the gold commentary space have commented on tungsten filled gold bars for many years, most notably Jim Willie, whilst the following does not prove his theories that US Treasury gold is compromised, it certainly makes the case more compelling.

ABC Bullion received the following email from one of our trusted suppliers this week.

Note:

• It was not ABC Bullion that purchased this bar, the email and photos were sent to us as a general warning.
• I xxxx'ed out the city's name to avoid any second guessing as to the name of the dealer.

19/03/2012:

Attached are photographs of a legitimate Metalor 1000gm Au bar that has been drilled out and filled with Tungsten (W).

This bar was purchased by staff of a scrap dealer in xxxxx, UK yesterday. The bar appeared to be perfect other than the fact that it was 2gms underweight. It was checked by hand-held xrf and showed 99.98% Au. Being Tungsten, it would not be ferro-magnetic. The bar was supplied with the original certificate.
The owner of the business that purchased the bar only became suspicious when he realized the weight discrepancy and had the bar cropped. He estimates between 30-40% of the weight of the bar to be Tungsten.

This is very worrying and reinforces the lengths that people are willing to go to profit from the current high metal prices. Please be careful.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J38wGnoCpW...s1600/bar3.jpg



http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TEGYmtgP2T...s1600/Bar4.jpg



http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q6W18Y4PIz...s1600/Bar2.JPG


ABC Bullion Blog: Tungsten filled Gold bars

Tungsten-Filled 1 Kilo Gold Bar Found In The UK

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../picture-5.jpg
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/24/2012 16:50 -0400

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 phenomonenon 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?
From ABC Bullion:

ABC Bullion received the following email from one of our trusted suppliers this week.

Note:

• It was not ABC Bullion that purchased this bar, the email and photos were sent to us as a general warning.
• I xxxx'ed out the city's name to avoid any second guessing as to the name of the dealer.

19/03/2012:

Attached are photographs of a legitimate Metalor 1000gm Au bar that has been drilled out and filled with Tungsten (W).

This bar was purchased by staff of a scrap dealer in xxxxx, UK yesterday. The bar appeared to be perfect other than the fact that it was 2gms underweight. It was checked by hand-held xrf and showed 99.98% Au. Being Tungsten, it would not be ferro-magnetic. The bar was supplied with the original certificate.

The owner of the business that purchased the bar only became suspicious when he realized the weight discrepancy and had the bar cropped. He estimates between 30-40% of the weight of the bar to be Tungsten.

This is very worrying and reinforces the lengths that people are willing to go to profit from the current high metal prices. Please be careful.

Photos of the cropped bars: 1000g Gold bar cut showing inserted tungsten rods


http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../03/bar3_0.jpg
Two halves of the cropped bar:

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../03/Bar4_0.jpg

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau.../03/Bar2_0.JPG

Finally, some observations from Paul Mylchreest on debasement:

Let’s consider the run-up to Rome’s hyperinflation. I think this comment from jaysromanhistory.com “Good Money, Bad Money, and Runaway Inflation” resonates with what’s happening in the US today:

“Severus Alexander (AD 222-235) tried to reform by going back to the denarius but, once started, this path of runaway inflation and financial irresponsibility on the part of the imperial government proved impossible to control.”

It also seems that the hyperinflation was preceded by some kind of banking crisis, which is an interesting parallel. From “Demise and Fall of the Augustan Monetary System” by Koenraad Verboven:

“Papyri show it was common for private individuals to deposit money at a bank and to make and accept payments through bankers.Bankers in the west disappear from view around the middle of the 3rd c… A famous papyrus from Oxyrhynchus from 260 CE shows exchange bankers closing in order to avoid having to change the ‘imperial money’. The strategos ordered the exchange bankers to reopen and accept all genuine coins and warned businessmen to do the same. In 266 CE we find for the first time transactions being expressed in ‘ptolemaeic’ or ‘old silver’ as opposed to ‘new silver’.”

The chart shows how inflation remained relatively subdued until a tipping point was reached in the late- 260s A.D Monetary systems can absorb substantial abuse before there is a dramatic impact on the price level. For example, the debasement of the coinage was already accelerating in the early part of the third century A.D., before plunging in the latter part. Indeed, the chart below (apologies for the quality) only shows the trend up to 253 AD. By around 290 AD, the coins were only dipped in silver to give them a coating (<0.5%):

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...12/03/TR 2.jpg

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/tungst...d-bar-found-uk

Fake gold bars out of tungsten a counterfeit story
By
MERLIN LAFLEUR, 2009/12/02


Short-term investments are very bullish, erratic, unpredictable and
undependable. But, long term investments are, relatively, considered safe and
reliable. Precious metals like gold and silver are considered to be true money, and governments have
been bastardizing precious metals since the night of time. It's all about
printing fake money anyway. Even as stocks were losing their value, gold was marching steadily, increasing by five percent in US dollars.


However, this 'buy and hold' strategy might not work anymore as the sub-prime crisis has shaken this belief in the long term investment mode. Now, has gold joined the bandwagon of safe long-term investment going awry by treading the path of the sub-prime crisis?

The counterfeit story


This October, bankers in Hong Kong were in for a rude shock when they
discovered some gold bars from the US to be actually gold plated
tungsten i.e., fake gold bars. Acting fast, the Chinese officials found the
perpetrators within hours.


It seems that fake Tungsten blanks, between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz, were manufactured in the US about fifteen years ago during the Clinton administration. Said to have been done by a very sophisticated refiner, 640,000 of these tungsten planks were gold plated and shifted to Fort Knox. The remaining also gold plated, but sold into the international market.

(Fort Knox , as you may be aware, is the United States Bullion
Depository, where the official gold reserves of the federal government arestored. This depository of about 4,603 tons (4 176 metric tonness) is the second highest gold depository in the US after the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's underground vault in Manhattan (5,000 metric tonness of gold).

Whoever pulled this one on the gold bars had connections inside the government, big banks and also a top-of-the-line fabrication facility. For, counterfeit is not something new for the US government, it did this is 1964 when zinc dimes clad in silver were introduced. That's why the pre 1964 coins are valued more.

Elsewhere, early this year, another counterfeit story made rounds as some of the gold bars in the vaults of the National bank of Ethiopia were found to be gold plated steel. It made news when the shipment of gold was returned by South Africa. It only could have been the work of a genius as fake gold bars made of steel are among the easiest to detect as they are lighter. Among gold coins, 22k Gold coins such as Krugerrand, are less likely to be counterfeited because thedensity of 22k gold minted from gold alloy that is 91.67 percent pure, is far
apart from that of tungsten. Tungsten has the same density (19.25g/cm3) as gold, so a fake bar is indistinguishable by weighing it. In comparison the density of pure 24k gold is within 0.26% of tungsten.

Gold Purity	Density (g/cm3)	Density difference from tungsten	Dimension difference of bar with same weight
Tungsten	19.25	0%	0%
24K Gold	19.3	0.26%	0.0017%
22K Gold	18.43	4.25%	0.0077%

Source: Gold-quote.net
The table above illustrates that although tungsten's density is within 0.26% of pure gold making it nearly impossible to detect, it is nearly 5% heavier than the 22 karat gold of Krugerrands.
The dimension
differences of a counterfeited 22 karat coin would have to be 6 times larger than those of a pure gold coin to weight the same. So one is 6 times more likely to detect a counterfeited 22k coin or piece of jewellery than a counterfeitedpure gold bar through simple measurement.

So just by weighing the coins you would tell a difference. So why aren't somany fake coins in the market? Coins are more liquid and circulated; they change hands more readily so it's more likely a fake one will be detected. Gold bars onthe other hands are given as little exposure to human hands as possible (fear of theft). They are conveyed in armored trucks, their serial numbers are exchanged and they're stacked away in a vault never to see the light of day again. Their credibility relies on a piece of paper and paper is easy to forge. Also the labor involved in making fake coins does not make it as worth a criminal's time
as a gold bar. (it costs $50,000 to make a fake $400,000 gold bar because of the real gold coating and the labor). Gold coins have lots of details including the number of ridges on the sides etc..and there are a lot of numismatic aficionados out there to tell a real from a fake.

MORE OF THE STORY AT:
Gold Quote.net

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY0bbRx3K64