Comments

I recently handled a 100g Pamp Suisse gold bar and when I flipped it in the air by hitting it with my thumb nail, it had a distinctive ring while spinning in the air. I was a little surprised since gold is so soft. The author mentioned a lead-antimony coating could give a gold plated tungsten bar the same feel and sound as gold, but I would think that this would be tricky. I do not have another of the same type of gold bar to compare the sound to, but I hope to find one soon. For a relative common, small, 999.9 pure gold bar such as the Pamp Suisse 100g cast bar, I think the sound of its ring would be a relatively simple simple test to distinguish a fake from a genuine one as long as you had a bar of known authenticity to compare it to.