Tungsten-Filled 10 Oz Gold Bar Found In The Middle Of Manhattan's Jewelry District
This is one of the numerous reasons I don't think it is possible to return to a PM standard of any type.
Coin Counterfeiting is actually
EASIER to do than Paper Currency counterfeiting, just about anybody can make the Molds in Plaster to do this. Much harder to make finely engraved Plates printed on Special Paper only Da Goobermint has access to.
With Gold skyrocketing to the
MOON here in value, the temptation to Counterfeit is enormous. How are you going to Test a Coin you buy from a Coin Dealer? He's not going to let your Drill into the Coin. With Tungsten so close in Density to Gold, you can't detect the difference with Archimedes Testing. Unless somebody comes up with a cheap tester that measures Magnetic properties or something like that which might identify the purity of the Coin, the chances it is a Counterfeit grow by the day and until you cut it open you won't know if it is Counterfeit or Real.
Similarly, the idea you could
TRUST a Centrally held Gold Horde in either a Private Bank or a Goobermint CB is exceedingly small here. They can easily Inflate their Gold Paperweight in the Vault by hollowing out a few Bars now and then, and even it you
HAD good Auditors who were not on the Take, the bad bars get hidden deep under the pile and don't get sniffed out for quite some time if ever.
Then comes the problem that if indeed the Currency is truly
Convertible to Gold (or Silver), who in their right mind would hold onto savings as the Paper Certificate? You go to the Bank and ask for the Gold Equivalent. So pretty quick the Horde of Gold held by the Bank is now distributed out, and the Bank holds nothing but
PAPER! Said Bank of course will not remain in Bizness too long after that happens.
One wonders with all these stories coming out here now about Counterfeit Gold Coins how many Gold Bugs are busy Drilling Out their Coins to see if there is a Tungsten Slug inside? Gotta be a bit worrisome for a Gold Bug.
RE