My neighbor has two small coins which he claims are gold, quarter ounce pieces. I don’t know the names but they have LIBERTY across the top just over the side view of person’s face with a number of stars cascading off his (her?) head. The coin is about 3/4 inch in diameter. I have been doing random google image searches but either I’m not using the right keywords of this coin is a fake.
It certainly seemed like gold; it was quite heavy for its small size and had that unusual bright gold luster that you just don’t see on other metals. I know gold is soft but I was hesitant to bite down on it for fear of scarring it.
I’ve known this neighbor for many years and don’t think he would intentionally defraud me, but it occurred to me that he might have been hosed by whoever he bought them from.
Another odd thing is that he only wants $350 for them. If they really are a quarter ounce, I would think he’d be asking somewhere around $420 for them.
So is there a quick way to increase my confidence that these are actually gold coins?
I used a tape measure and it looked like about three-quarters of an inch, so that’s what… about 2 cm?
I don’t want to do anything that might damage it since it’s not mine. I believe there was a torch on the back.
The image for quarter eagle fits my description above, but that’s not the coin I saw. The I believe the person’s shoulders were showing and it had long hair pulled back into a bun or pony tail. This was yesterday so I am going from memory.
That looks like nasty stuff. If I’m going to go out and buy metal-testing chemicals, I’d sooner just take the coins to a coin dealer for his analysis. I assume a dealer could quickly tell with minimal effort and cost to me?
Does the coin look like This? What’s the date on the coin? Notice how the picture shows a US $5 gold coin, which clearly has the “Five D.” at the bottom of the reverse side.
Edited to ad that the gold content of such a coin is 0.24 ounce of gold. With gold at say $1616 today, the coin has a melt value of $387. US today.
Test the density, just like Archimedes. Find out the volume by dipping in water, then weigh. If it’s over about 18.5 g/cc, then it’s either uranium, tungsten, or gold (anything else isn’t worth using as a substitute). Uranium is unlikely for obvious reasons. Tungsten is a danger… but I doubt even an expert could tell the difference there, and I’ve no idea if there’s any kind of known gold coin faking racket involving tungsten.
I was going to say it sounded a little like something from the Liberty Dollar people when you said there was a torch on the reverse, but I can’t find that they ever made a quarter ounce gold round. ETA: Here’s one of their gold ones. Did it look anything like that?
Hopefully this isn’t some kind of trade secret, but can you say how? As far as I understand, there are only a few non-invasive ways of distinguishing between a lump of gold and a well-made tungsten fake, and they’re not very accessible even to an expert (x-rays, some kind of sound-based thing, etc.). Maybe it’s just a matter of spotting the fakery in the design itself?
That would work in some cases, but any kind of proper fake would have a relatively thick plating of real gold, and therefore pass either a touchstone or acid test.
Well, at least that’s what I’d do if I were trying to produce fake coins :).
