Gold scam.

[rwill]

19 hours ago, realfunster said:

As Lopburi3 mentions, many moons ago I took a 18k gold item to a Thai gold shop, they were not interested in the slightest.

I see some gold ships selling 18K jewelery.   The ones I have seen it in called it 'Italian gold'

[Sharp]

21 hours ago, petermik said:

So the "lucky" amulet wasn`t so lucky after all.........

Was for the seller 

[rabas]

18 hours ago, Lacessit said:

There is another gold scam to be wary of.

Tungsten and gold have almost identical densities.

Gold-plate a tungsten bar, and it is suddenly far more valuable.

AFAIK small gold shops usually determine purity by density.

The scam can be detected quite quickly with a Rockwell hardness meter. However, they are expensive machines.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-tungsten-gold-2012-9

 

Use a steel nail or file, won't touch tungsten. (Mohs harness)

 

gold 24K    2.5

gold 14K    3.5-3.8

iron nail   ~4-4

steel nail   5-7

steel file    ~7.5

tungsten    8-9

 

Though I doubt anyone would make ordinary jewelry from tungsten. It melts at 3422 °C (6,191.6 °F) and is so hard it will dent a steel hammer used to shape it.

 

 

Edited February 6 by rabas

[rabas]

 

I would be more worried about someone in Thailand making fake 23K gold jewelery out of spent Uranium, which is easier to work with, and, radioactive.

 

[proton]

23 hours ago, petermik said:

So the "lucky" amulet wasn`t so lucky after all.........

It was for the seller of the crap 😀

[wombat]

22 hours ago, Will B Good said:

she's lost any paperwork she originally had.

red flag right there...

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, rabas said:

Use a steel nail or file, won't touch tungsten. (Mohs harness)

 

gold 24K    2.5

gold 14K    3.5-3.8

iron nail   ~4-4

steel nail   5-7

steel file    ~7.5

tungsten    8-9

 

Though I doubt anyone would make ordinary jewelry from tungsten. It melts at 3422 °C (6,191.6 °F) and is so hard it will dent a steel hammer used to shape it.

 

 

I wasn't suggesting jewellery, only bullion.

I suppose some smarty could come up with a layer of gold thickness that would defeat Mohs or Rockwell testing. Tungsten only costs $3.25 per pound, gold is more than USD 2000 an ounce.

[rabas]

9 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

I wasn't suggesting jewellery, only bullion.

I suppose some smarty could come up with a layer of gold thickness that would defeat Mohs or Rockwell testing. Tungsten only costs $3.25 per pound, gold is more than USD 2000 an ounce.

 

Agree, that's why I said ordinary jewelry. I too would test a gold bar. 

[retarius]

I've taken some of my wife's jewellery back to the shops where we bought it from....generally to exchange lower weight necklaces for bigger weight ones. It is a con, they change a per carat fee for accepting your jewellery, they give an inferior rate for your jewellery vs the adverted per carat weight, then they charge a fee per carat for purchasing the new item. A couple of years back we wanted to exchange a 3 carat necklace for 5 carat....gold was about 20,000 at the time...the additional fees totalled 20,000 or thereabout meaning they were charging 1 carat worth for the simple transaction. I told them to GTH.

I think most gold jewellery sold in 9 carat everywhere in the world. High carat weights are unsuitable for jewellery.

A whole back I started buying these 1 baht gold 'bars' which are supposed to be 99% gold. I'll take one back to the jeweller to see what they offer. If they tell me the gold is 9 carat and inferior I'll go the police. 

Edited February 6 by retarius

[Kalasin Jo]

On 2/5/2024 at 11:30 AM, realfunster said:

took a 18k gold item to a Thai gold shop, they were not interested in the slightest.

Nope they are not. Only 22 carat. As you say there is a colour difference as well as it being softer. 22 is very yellow. Even 18 carat is noticeably lighter...and harder. In the west we don't use 22 carat for jewelry. I've never seen it in a jewellery shop. In Thailand as I quickly learnt 22 carat jewellery has only 2 purposes, a visible expression of wealth and therefore status at important events and as readily realisable in need ( with a very subjective test of need). Is giving gold jewellery seen as  an expression of love and commitment here and appreciated for it? Nah. Possibly for about 10 seconds, no more.

[lou norman]

On 2/5/2024 at 12:28 PM, Will B Good said:

Been married too long....555

Been married long enough to know how it works!

[Will B Good]

On 2/6/2024 at 10:44 AM, wombat said:

red flag right there...

?

[Photoguy21]

On 2/5/2024 at 11:02 AM, petermik said:

So the "lucky" amulet wasn`t so lucky after all.........

Was lucky for the seller

[realfunster]

Would be interested to hear the update once/if it is all sorted out !