Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

Yeah, I was gonna say... It should be possible to get/build an appropriate ultrasound tester for $100-$300. I have some equipment I'll be experimenting with, and some Caltech-educated EE friends that should be able to help out... I'm pretty confident this can be done cheaply.

i'd doubt that b/c you need a sensitive probe with variable frequency adjustment for different metals and a console with display screen. 

[1713579964]

1713579964

[1713579964]

1713579964

[cypherdoc]

i don't know about you but i'm worried about the integrity of my own coins which is why i'm going to US them.  and i bought them way before $1000.  i do know that if i'm worried, everyone else is too.

Yeah, people are definitely going to be pretty worried about their physical... But I suspect *most* (in private hands, at least) will be found to be legit. Cheap testing equipment will proliferate a bit, and this will blow over. Obviously, I could be wrong, but these things generally tend to get blown out of proportion...

You're looking at this as really bearish for gold. What about the flipside argument? If there really *is* widespread fraudulent physical gold (say, more than 15% of what's in private hands), that instantly reduces what people thought the supply of physical gold was, therefore bumping the price?? Maybe this just causes a big spread to develop between paper and (legit)physical... ?

Disclosure: I'm neither bullish nor bearish on gold. Too much variance on all the variables, leading to statistical noise in aggregate, in my opinion... Bitcoin, on the other hand, I'm pretty bullish on. And yeah, good luck filling bitcoin with tungsten.

imagine if just one Bitcoin was found to be filled with "tungsten" metaphorically; it would destroy the entire Bitcoin concept.

now you can say that it would be different somehow for gold or silver if "just 5%"  or even "1%" were fake b/c of its thousand year history but do you really think that will be the case?  how many of you can stand to have 5% of your stash to be fake?

[SkRRJyTC]

i don't know about you but i'm worried about the integrity of my own coins which is why i'm going to US them.  and i bought them way before $1000.  i do know that if i'm worried, everyone else is too.

Yeah, people are definitely going to be pretty worried about their physical... But I suspect *most* (in private hands, at least) will be found to be legit. Cheap testing equipment will proliferate a bit, and this will blow over. Obviously, I could be wrong, but these things generally tend to get blown out of proportion...

You're looking at this as really bearish for gold. What about the flipside argument? If there really *is* widespread fraudulent physical gold (say, more than 15% of what's in private hands), that instantly reduces what people thought the supply of physical gold was, therefore bumping the price?? Maybe this just causes a big spread to develop between paper and (legit)physical... ?

Disclosure: I'm neither bullish nor bearish on gold. Too much variance on all the variables, leading to statistical noise in aggregate, in my opinion... Bitcoin, on the other hand, I'm pretty bullish on. And yeah, good luck filling bitcoin with tungsten.

imagine if just one Bitcoin was found to be filled with "tungsten" metaphorically; it would destroy the entire Bitcoin concept.

now you can say that it would be different somehow for gold or silver if "just 5%"  or even "1%" were fake b/c of its thousand year history but do you really think that will be the case?  how many of you can stand to have 5% of your stash to be fake?

I think you have a better argument about this being a game changer than I previously thought.

Im not going to run and sell, or even test my stack, but keep talking Cypherdoc, you are convincing me.

[silverbox]

i don't know about you but i'm worried about the integrity of my own coins which is why i'm going to US them.  and i bought them way before $1000.  i do know that if i'm worried, everyone else is too.

Yeah, people are definitely going to be pretty worried about their physical... But I suspect *most* (in private hands, at least) will be found to be legit. Cheap testing equipment will proliferate a bit, and this will blow over. Obviously, I could be wrong, but these things generally tend to get blown out of proportion...

You're looking at this as really bearish for gold. What about the flipside argument? If there really *is* widespread fraudulent physical gold (say, more than 15% of what's in private hands), that instantly reduces what people thought the supply of physical gold was, therefore bumping the price?? Maybe this just causes a big spread to develop between paper and (legit)physical... ?

Disclosure: I'm neither bullish nor bearish on gold. Too much variance on all the variables, leading to statistical noise in aggregate, in my opinion... Bitcoin, on the other hand, I'm pretty bullish on. And yeah, good luck filling bitcoin with tungsten.

imagine if just one Bitcoin was found to be filled with "tungsten" metaphorically; it would destroy the entire Bitcoin concept.

now you can say that it would be different somehow for gold or silver if "just 5%"  or even "1%" were fake b/c of its thousand year history but do you really think that will be the case?  how many of you can stand to have 5% of your stash to be fake?

Coinage has been debased and counterfeited since the begninning of time.  This is no different.  I doubt even 1 in 1000 gold bullion coins/bars are fake.  I'm not worried about my bullion in the slightest.  If it was even as widespread as 1% counterfeit, we'd be seeing 100s of examples on social media and news stories.. Not the same 10 oz bar over and over again.

[cypherdoc]

i don't know about you but i'm worried about the integrity of my own coins which is why i'm going to US them.  and i bought them way before $1000.  i do know that if i'm worried, everyone else is too.

Yeah, people are definitely going to be pretty worried about their physical... But I suspect *most* (in private hands, at least) will be found to be legit. Cheap testing equipment will proliferate a bit, and this will blow over. Obviously, I could be wrong, but these things generally tend to get blown out of proportion...

You're looking at this as really bearish for gold. What about the flipside argument? If there really *is* widespread fraudulent physical gold (say, more than 15% of what's in private hands), that instantly reduces what people thought the supply of physical gold was, therefore bumping the price?? Maybe this just causes a big spread to develop between paper and (legit)physical... ?

Disclosure: I'm neither bullish nor bearish on gold. Too much variance on all the variables, leading to statistical noise in aggregate, in my opinion... Bitcoin, on the other hand, I'm pretty bullish on. And yeah, good luck filling bitcoin with tungsten.

imagine if just one Bitcoin was found to be filled with "tungsten" metaphorically; it would destroy the entire Bitcoin concept.

now you can say that it would be different somehow for gold or silver if "just 5%"  or even "1%" were fake b/c of its thousand year history but do you really think that will be the case?  how many of you can stand to have 5% of your stash to be fake?

Coinage has been debased and counterfeited since the begninning of time.  This is no different.  I doubt even 1 in 1000 gold bullion coins/bars are fake.  I'm not worried about my bullion in the slightest.  If it was even as widespread as 1% counterfeit, we'd be seeing 100s of examples on social media and news stories.. Not the same 10 oz bar over and over again.

there were 10 bars found in the middle of Manhattan.  and do you really think the counterfeiters just pumped a few bars full of tungsten?  no.  i bet there's some huge operation somewhere in the Orient as well as elsewhere where they're pumping hundreds of these bars, maybe thousands and sending them all over the world.  that's fine if you are comfortable with that but a big part of investing in pm's is that there will be later suckers willing to take those bars and coins off your hands at a much higher prices.  this will have a chilling effect.  this type of news is not good no matter how you slice it.

[Severian]

  If it was even as widespread as 1% counterfeit, we'd be seeing 100s of examples on social media and news stories.. Not the same 10 oz bar over and over again.

Hard to say. Most dealers won't say a word if they find a fake. The good ones remove it from circulation, the worse ones pass it on to one of their more clueless customers.

[labestiol]

I also don't think it's a game changer, since there is already good solutions to solve it.
Even if cheap ultrasound testers are not good enough, then I guess at least the big dealers will be able to buy good ones. It will perhaps add costs, but won't be a game changer. And clearly bitcoin is a lot less expensive to test.

But for sure with the rise in price of PM, these companies will have a bright future  

[cypherdoc]

well, you know what they say, perception is everything.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

Coinage has been debased and counterfeited since the begninning of time.  This is no different.  I doubt even 1 in 1000 gold bullion coins/bars are fake.  I'm not worried about my bullion in the slightest.  If it was even as widespread as 1% counterfeit, we'd be seeing 100s of examples on social media and news stories.. Not the same 10 oz bar over and over again.

Indeed, nothing new under the sun.  Once the very first coin circulated 2500 years ago, fake plated versions were immediately made, of which some have survived to this day:

Lydian electrum trite fourree with eight countermarks (3.41g). The diagnostics of this ancient fake are its low weight and the exposed silver interior. The electrum plating has worn off in some areas, leaving the silver interior exposed at the high points of the obverse and reverse. The impressed areas wound up with thinner plating, which caused the interior silver to be also exposed at the incuse square and countermarks. The dark areas show uncleaned darkly toned silver.



http://oldestcoins.reidgold.com/article.html

[cypherdoc]

I also don't think it's a game changer, since there is already good solutions to solve it.
Even if cheap ultrasound testers are not good enough, then I guess at least the big dealers will be able to buy good ones.

i don't like that solution at all if you expect any meaningful rise in price from here.  any real solution has to come from the root of the problem on the production side.  if that's even possible.  any solutions that are reactive, such as US, are just bandaids as far as i'm concerned.  and then that doesn't solve the trust issue with your dealer.

[cypherdoc]

btw, i think its time to short miners again.  i'm comin' for ya' silverbox! 

[cypherdoc]

this is just way too funny :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110494.msg1220986#msg1220986

http://www.popgive.com/2008/07/dont-buy-ups-without-warranty.html

[labestiol]

I also don't think it's a game changer, since there is already good solutions to solve it.
Even if cheap ultrasound testers are not good enough, then I guess at least the big dealers will be able to buy good ones.

i don't like that solution at all if you expect any meaningful rise in price from here.  any real solution has to come from the root of the problem on the production side.  if that's even possible.  any solutions that are reactive, such as US, are just bandaids as far as i'm concerned.  and then that doesn't solve the trust issue with your dealer.

How can it be possible to solve that ? There will always be people making fake coins/bars, like n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU showed it's not a new problem. History shows it didn't prevented gold/silver to impose itself as money in history.
It's an arms race between people making these bars and people testing them. And people testing are winning. If these bars were not detectable without melting it, that would be a real problem.

[cypherdoc]

I also don't think it's a game changer, since there is already good solutions to solve it.
Even if cheap ultrasound testers are not good enough, then I guess at least the big dealers will be able to buy good ones.

i don't like that solution at all if you expect any meaningful rise in price from here.  any real solution has to come from the root of the problem on the production side.  if that's even possible.  any solutions that are reactive, such as US, are just bandaids as far as i'm concerned.  and then that doesn't solve the trust issue with your dealer.

How can it be possible to solve that ? There will always be people making fake coins/bars, like n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU showed it's not a new problem. History shows it didn't prevented gold/silver to impose itself as money in history.
It's an arms race between people making these bars and people testing them. And people testing are winning. If these bars were not detectable without melting it, that would be a real problem.

it may have always been a problem but with today's technology and pricing, it has the potential to be a huge problem the magnitude of which has never been seen before.  the fact that they now are able to inject coins takes it to the personal level of you, me and the middle class who mostly consumes coins, not bars.  as i said before, the profits are so high that the scammers have tossed all risk aside and are now flooding Manhattan premium dealers. 

in fact, i'm sitting right here twittling a one ounce gold coin on the table and wondering what the hell is inside.

[adamstgBit]

in fact, i'm sitting right here twittling a one ounce gold coin on the table and wondering what the hell is inside.

[smoothie]

in fact, i'm sitting right here twittling a one ounce gold coin on the table and wondering what the hell is inside.

MMMMMMMMMMM GOLD CHOCOLATE!

[Melbustus]

i'd doubt that b/c you need a sensitive probe with variable frequency adjustment for different metals and a console with display screen. 

This can't be *that* difficult. One should be able to take an off-the-shelf ultrasound probe and connect it to a smartphone through some custom hardware (yes, that's the hard part, but probably not ridiculous). Then it becomes a software issue (signal processing, etc).

[molecular]

in fact, i'm sitting right here twittling a one ounce gold coin on the table and wondering what the hell is inside.

[labestiol]

Wow, What the hell is happening. Someone is dumping PM, and cypherdoc didn't post here yet 
Hope everything is ok for you.

On a side note, I'm happy I didn't took your bet 
But If you are sad about that, we can double the previous one (1500$ vs 1900$)

[SkRRJyTC]

Wow, What the hell is happening. Someone is dumping PM, and cypherdoc didn't post here yet 
Hope everything is ok for you.

On a side note, I'm happy I didn't took your bet 
But If you are sad about that, we can double the previous one (1500$ vs 1900$)

I was wondering where Cypher is too, hopefully he is living it up for a few days.

Ill double down too.