Posted on 03/02/2010 4:31:04 AM PST by Daisyjane69
German TV station ProSieben finds what appears to be some evocative proof of gold counterfeiting, in the form of tungsten gold substitutes coming to the W.C.Heraeus foundry, which is the world's largest privately-owned precious metals refiner and fabricator, located in Hanau, Germany. The foundry has isolated at least one 500-gram tungsten bar due for melting, originating from a (so far) unnamed bank, which as the head of the foundry stated made the unpleasant discovery that "not all the glitters is gold."
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
*yikes*
Most tungsten I know of comes from China.
what’s scary is that ZH says it came from an unnamed bank. Could have been anywhere. meh
HF
But the story of the bars is that they came from America, during the Clinton administration. Or rather, to put it another way, during the Clinton administration, orders for many tons of tungsten bars came from America.
The bank bought it from an unnamed customer. The bank is the one taking the loss here, and I’ll bet they know whom they bought it from.
It only takes a tape measure and a scale to know whether the bar you have is gold. Gold cannot be counterfeited to make it undetectable by someone who can do some simple measurements or water displacement. That is part of the secret of its enduring value. Any combination of metals that could be alloyed to give the same weight and volume as gold will be more costly than the gold for which it is substituted. It would be “counterfeit” but the person to whom the counterfeit is passed would be richer from the “scam.”
A 500 gram bar should be identifiable as counterfeit as soon as a dealer picks it up.
That seems curious to me in that context. The point of the video would seem to be don't trust "all that glitters", but not to trust Ben (Franklin?) or the Dollar could well be a hint as to the origin of the gold. Otherwise, it would seem ill-placed in the video, as Dollar currency would almost certainly be more trustworthy than the fake-but-glittering stuff of the video.
So, yes, it would appear the video producer is quietly fingering the US. But... WHY BE COY?!?!
If Clinton was behind these fakes, would the truth come to light in our/his lifetime? It's been noted repeatedly how unusual it is that no tell-all book regarding the Clinton Administration's inner workings has been written. When will we know the truth about Vince? When will we know the truth about tungsten-alloyed gold? (in German, tungsten = wolfram).
HF
Well, they had all that tungsten left over after the world went to CFL bulbs....................
The atomic symbol for tungsten is “W”, so it’s Bush’s fault!................
I don’t think so. Tungsten is nearly exactly the same density as gold. I would think that would make it very difficult to feel out a fake bar merely by holding it.
from WIKI:
Tungsten ... is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.
A steel-gray metal, tungsten is found in several ores, including wolframite and scheelite. It is remarkable for its robust physical properties, especially the fact that it has the highest melting point of all the non-alloyed metals and the second highest of all the elements after carbon. Also remarkable is its very high density of 19.3 times heavier than water, and 71% heavier than lead. Tungsten is often brittle and hard to work in its raw state; if pure, it can be cut with a hacksaw.
Very interesting story, given the rumors about gold-plated tungsten bars which were circulating on the internet a few months ago. If this is more than an “isolated incident”, things with gold could get weird very quickly.
not quite true: The difference between the density of gold and tungsten is so small that you would have to use laboratory type measuring devices to measure the difference, and even then, even tiny voids in the bar could cause the gold to come up lighter than a similar sized tungsten.
No, the video producer is a mainstream German television station. But the paranoid crackpot who posted it on youtube added a second track of commentary not contained in the original.
No one is saying this came from the US.
The “Ben” the paranoid loon is referring to is Bernanke.
The reference to Clinton from a poster is purely a timeframe reference. Clinton had nothing whatsoever to do with this. Gold was 230 dollars an ounce at that time, who’d bother counterfeiting it?
Gold also has a density of 19.3 g/cm^2. I think the difference between the two elements is in the hundredth digit.
Not true. Tungsten has the same density as gold to within a % point. It will be the same weight for the same dimensions as pure gold. In this case (watch the video) there is about a quarter inch of real gold around the tungsten slug.
That doesn’t mean it can’t be tested, it just means that weight/dimension tools won’t work. You can still detect fakes/tungsten slugs by their thermal and electrical conductivity and other means.
NB: This is not a case of “gold plating” tungsten. This is a tungsten core molded inside of real gold, with several mm of real gold hiding the tungsten core.
But the “nase des alten fuchs” was able to tell immediately that something was wrong with it. Just goes to show what experience is worth
Gold Bump.
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