Big Boys Hobbies

Fake Gold Scam

Tpmetal said:
This has been going on since the 1800s minimum, and I sure long before as well. I have found several old brass/copper rings stamped as gold. Often sold by traveling vendors in places like fairs and harvest festivals. That's why you assume nothing is gold until you file into it and test regardless of markings
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You are right. I used to detect old home sites long gone in fields. I found a lot of so called gold rings .... stamped that were BRASS from the 1800s. Trying to scam people sure isnt new...... even coins back then. Most of us are smart enough to test our finds before we start out HAPPY DANCE. The new man made diamonds are another scam. The Chinese have found it worth the money to use REAL gold when making fake precious gold coins and silver... even to the extend of aging them. It takes a grader and coin sniffer to ID some of them.
 
So true Dew. Even the grading services have been fooled by some of these " rare" coins. Though I wish I still had some of the rare coins I dealt in back in the 80s , there is NO way I would think of investing in them now. Counterfeits , doctored coins , etc. Just too much risk.
 
The problem with coins is...when I was a kid collecting them they weren’t INVESTMENTS...it was collecting. Investors have made it profitable to fake coins.
 
Being in "the business" I see at least a dozen fake gold rings & chains a week. Most are 14 & 18k. There was a guy scamming people in my area with a certain style of an 18k ring who needed money for a car repair, bill, ect. These people after buying these rings would bring them in to me for an appraisal. At first they say it was past on to them from a relative but then come clean and say they bought it off the street. Another big scam is Tiffany, Yurman, and Hardy designer sterling silver jewelry. Why not take $1 of silver and turn it into 100's. I see it all the time. Coins?, the best counterfeiter was "The Omega Man". His claim to fame was rare gold coins. Stared surfacing in the 70s. Very hard to spot except to the trained eye. The guy was never caught. Very interesting story. Google him at your leisure.
 
Oh yes! I've seen (and own) some fakes. The chain I'm including a picture of was bought by a neighbor of mine. "Isn't it gorgeous? It's eighteen karat!" she asked me "It's real! You can tell by the clasp! I only paid four hundred dollars for it!" She showed me this chain and then asked "by the way... how do you get tarnish off of 18K gold?"
Uh.....
Yeah. The clasp IS a lovely, heavy one, with not one but *two* safety clips, and it IS deeply and clearly stamped 18K (can't see it well in the pic)... but now... eighteen karat gold does NOT tarnish! When I pointed out to her it WAS a fake, she was completely disgusted and said "It isn't real?! Then... YOU can have it!" and handed it to me!
I polished it up and it looks wonderful. I wear it, but yeah, I know it's a fake!
She got royally rooked.
Sage(it was an eyeball find!)Grouse
 

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SageGrouse said:
... When I pointed out to her it WAS a fake, she was completely disgusted and said "It isn't real?! ...
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I think she might have been better off not knowing it is fake. If someone gave it to her as a gift they may be in the doghouse now.
 
Nope, she had bought it, along with four or five other fake chains, on a cruise ship! The scammer offered the fakes for sale on the *last* day of the cruise! He probably had picked them up while they were in another country, and figured he'd get away with it. He did. She gave him nearly a thousand dollars for six or seven fake chains. I got three of them from her as a gift! LOL!
Sage(Yeah, I'll take it off your hands)Grouse
 
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