Reputable Manhattan Dealer Finds Tungsten Filled Gold Bar

[S.Shorland]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/tungst...welry-district

[cjm]

article...

Tungsten-Filled 10 Oz Gold Bar Found In The Middle Of Manhattan's Jewelry District
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/18/2012 20:42 -0400

It is one thing for tungsten-filled gold bars to appear in the UK, or in Germany: after all out of sight, and across the Atlantic, certainly must mean out of mind, and out of the safe. However, when a 10 ounce 999.9 gold bar bearing the stamp of the reputable Swiss Produits Artistiques Métaux Précieux (PAMP, with owner MTP) and a serial number (serial #038892, likely rehypothecated in at least 10 gold ETFs across the world but that's a different story), mysteriously emerges in the heart of the world's jewerly district located on 47th street in Manhattan, things get real quick. Moments ago, Myfoxny reported that a 10-ounce gold bar costing nearly $18,000 turned out to be a counterfeit. The discovery was made by the dealer Ibrahim Fadl, who bought the PAMP bar in question from a merchant who has sold him real gold before. "But he heard counterfeit gold bars were going around, so he drilled into several of his gold bars worth $100,000 and saw gray tungsten -- not gold. The bar was filled with tungsten, which weighs nearly the same as gold but costs just over a dollar an ounce."

What makes so devious is a real gold bar is purchased with the serial numbers and papers, then it is hollowed out, the gold is sold, the tungsten is put in, then the bar is closed up. That is a sophisticated operation.



MTB, the Swiss manufacturer of the gold bars, said customers should only buy from a reputable merchant. The problem, he admits, is Ibrahim Fadl is a very reputable merchant.



Raymond Nessim, CEO Manfra, Tordell & Brookes, said he has reported the situation to the FBI and Secret Service.



The Secret Service, which deals with counterfeits, said it is investigating.

And cue panic on the realization that virtually any gold bar in the world, not just those in Europe and Australia, which have already had close encounters with Tungsten substitutes, but also New York may be hollowed out and have a real worth of a few dollars max. Which, sadly, is fitting considering our main story from last night was the realization that an unknown amount of Chinese iron ore had either never existed or had simply vaporized, and was no longer serving as the secured collateral to various liabilities circulating in the electronic ether. After all, only the most naive out there could conceive of gold being sacrosanct when every other asset class is being diluted to infinity by a regime that has long since run out of money.

As for gold-based transactions on West 47th street: look for that market to grind to a halt at least for as long as it takes for this scandal to be forgotten too.

The only open question remaining will be how much of the gold located 90 feet below Libert 33 is in the same Tungstenized format. For what it's worth: it is unlikely we will ever find out.

This is what glaring gold counterfeiting looks like.






And for the reading challenged:

New York News | NYC Breaking News

All that said, with false flags rampant these days, we would not be surprised if this is merely yet another attempt to discredit gold, this time physical, as an undilutable medium of warehousing wealth. So buyer beware: in a time when everyone is broke, triple check before exchanging one store of wealth for another.

[Acala]

Must have used one hell of a drill to put a divot like that in tungsten. When is one of you electronics experts going to develop a device that detects tungsten adulteration in gold? Or perhaps a bend test? Tungsten is really stiff while gold is highly malleable. You could probably tell the difference with just the slightest deflection. I think the market can solve this problem in a heart beat.

[jkr]

AHHH!
finally, 20 YEARS LATER, the clinTON gold bobs to the surface like a petrified "golden" turd


i cant stand that "mAn"

[Acala]

Having given this more thought, I think false flag is a real possibility. Why would this guy be suspicious in the first place? Enough to start defacing - and thereby certainly reducing the value of - sealed and certified gold bars? And why did he do the drilling through the plastic as if he were setting up a demonstration? And how is it that he happened to be using what must have been a diamond drill? You don't drill into tungsten like that with just any old bit but you can drill through plastic and gold with almost anything. Smells funny to me.

[fisharmor]

What makes so devious is a real gold bar is purchased with the serial numbers and papers, then it is hollowed out, the gold is sold, the tungsten is put in, then the bar is closed up. That is a sophisticated operation.

More shenanigans.

Tungsten has a melting point three times as high as gold. So you can't hollow out the gold and just put tungsten in. Not without starting with a known size of tungsten bar, boring out the gold bar, slipping in the tungsten, and then soldering the gold back together.
This action would create visible seams in the gold - perhaps not on casual visual inspection, but definitely to a trained eye under a loupe.

Also, tungsten is slightly less dense than gold. So even if you were able to hollow out a bar to exacting dimensions (sub-thousanths!) and fit an exactly sized tungsten bar inside (again, sub-thousanths) you're still going to have voids created by the machine marks on the gold and the tungsten, and those voids, combined with the density difference, are definitely going to add up to a verifiable mass difference.
I have $10 pocket jewelry scales that would pick up that difference. The multi-thousand dollar scales they're using in the jewelry industry would pick it up the first time they weigh it.
9.9999oz is not equal to 10oz.

I'm willing to bet the buyer noticed something else about it before getting out his drill gun.

[Brian4Liberty]

What makes so devious is a real gold bar is purchased with the serial numbers and papers, then it is hollowed out, the gold is sold, the tungsten is put in, then the bar is closed up. That is a sophisticated operation.

From the photos shown, I am not sold on the theory that it was a "hollowed out" bar. It looks more like a manufactured counterfeit.

Edit: fisharmor beat me to it! ^

[Brian4Liberty]

(serial #038892, likely rehypothecated in at least 10 gold ETFs across the world but that's a different story)

And a story that should be easily verified. IIRC, the inventory (serial number) lists for GLD storage facilities are easy to obtain.

[Brian4Liberty]

When is one of you electronics experts going to develop a device that detects tungsten adulteration in gold? Or perhaps a bend test? Tungsten is really stiff while gold is highly malleable. You could probably tell the difference with just the slightest deflection. I think the market can solve this problem in a heart beat.

Here is an interesting link from the Perth Mint. Obviously they have an agenda of "all is well", but they make some points, and talk about non-destructive testing.

With regard to identification of fakes, the most reliable non destructive testing method is ultrasonic and would easily show any insertions. XRF and other tests generally do not penetrate very far into the surface of a bar, so are only good for testing plated bars. This link provides an insight into the sort of testing performed at refineries and for those interested in the technical aspects here is a quote from KK&S Instruments:

“The 1090 Flaw Detector allows you to look into the Bar for voids/defects as well as UT velocity which is determined the products elastic modulus i.e Tungsten Velocity is 5183-5460m/sec and Gold is 3,240m/sec. For example if you calibrate for Au then the testing Tungsten bar of the same thickness, the UT thickness would read approximately half the actual because of the speeding-up of the sound through the Tungsten.”

GoldMoney also has a good video on the ultrasonic testing they perform on their bars. Interestingly, they only found ten bars out of 1,377 with “inconclusive scans were identified but assays of these bars confirmed they contained the gold content stamped on the bar.” [link] These bars are 400oz professional market bars and is yet more proof that fakes are not common.

[RonRules]

Let me go full tin foil hat!

They've forced us to use CFL light bulbs (with toxic mercury) so tungsten (previously used in incandescent bulbs) would be readily available!

It's a conspiracy of the Illuminati!

[Steven Douglas]

There is another thing that is troubling about this story. Manfra, Tordell & Brookes deals in PM's and they didn't already have a screening test in place?

This is a ridiculously simple problem to solve from a technological standpoint, so that ANYONE can test.

In China, little machines for detecting counterfeit bills are available to the public at extremely low cost.

I have a friend who is now working on a fool-proof, inexpensive (open source, public domain, no patenting involved) method for testing of PM's based on a simple ultra-wideband acoustic resonance test. Nothing more. He has the same objective in mind - to make inexpensive devices available to anyone on the cheap, so that everyday people can detect counterfeits that involve PM's.

Acoustic resonance technology requires no fluid coupling medium, unlike ultrasonic testing, which is expensive and does require a fluid couplant.

All massive objects, even those of mixed compositions, have passive mechanical "half-wave resonance" frequencies; that is, frequencies at which catastrophic resonance occurs when an external acoustical signal is applied. With PM's there is no catastrophic failure involved (actual mechanical failure of the object under test, like a wine glass that goes into catastrophic resonance breaks in front of a speaker at a given frequency). The metallic object simply absorbs maximal energy and 'sings', but ONLY at a given frequency. That 'signature' frequency, and its harmonics (multiples, very important for testing), will be different for all objects, and with any change in shape, mass, composition, or other physical properties.

To keep costs down, the testing apparatus is being designed as a non-destructive pass-fail only. It is not designed for analysis of any kind, and will tell you nothing about what is counterfeit about a given coin or bar, or why -- only that its passive acoustic signature deviates from that of known good samples. As a bonus (to me), of all the metals considered, none are more conducive to acoustical resonance testing than silver, with its superior acoustical properties. Nothing 'sings' more loudly or purely than silver.

What's really cool about this, since there are so many different shapes and sizes and variations of ingots, coins, bars, etc., that are circulated: Signatures of known good samples are published on the internet in real time by manufacturers, dealers, and literally millions of users. All signature deviations will stick out like sore thumbs - like a virus. Just download your signature updates, like you would any anti-virus program update, from a respected public source. So the idea that something stamped "Engelhard" is somehow more reliable (actually less, because they are counterfeited more) than something with a lesser-known stamping is done away with entirely. You can obtain acoustic signatures for ANYTHING. A fork, a spoon, a coin or bar -- anything at all. And, no central control on acoustic signatures is even possible. Everybody is telling on everybody else.

[Schifference]

We need the government to be more involved in regulating the purchase and sale of gold!

[RonRules]

^ Science for the win! ^

[RonRules]

We need the government to be more involved in regulating the purchase and sale of gold!

You forgot to end the sentence with "/sarcasm".