Just a quick post tonight...
Tungsten filled Gold bars have made the Zero Hedge feed a few times, most recently around 3 weeks ago (Tungsten-Filled 10 Oz Gold Bar Found In The Middle Of Manhattan's Jewelry District):
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."
Something that readers may not be aware of is that Tungsten filled Gold bars are far from a new scam. I was reading back through some old articles on Gold today and spotted two different scares, in January 1975 and June/July 1982. Below are two of the articles I found (click article to enlarge) and may be of interest:
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BB.
