Magnet Test on a Real and Fake Engelhard 100oz Silver Bar

Although posted 11 years ago, this information is relevant today. Thanks for the video!

@remsensor The problem, though, is that while lead is about 8% heavier than silver (lead is 11340kg/m vs silver's 10490kg/m), lead can be alloyed with another lighter metal, such as tin, to get the density exact. An 80% lead/20% tin alloy is simple to produce (4:1 ratio), and weighs 10,528kg/m, or 0.3% more than silver. It is believed such an alloy was used in the lead-filled Engelhard bars (see About.Ag/Lead100OunceBars.htm), which even Engelhard had troubles distinguishing.

Where did you get the bar from? After I saw this video I had to go and check all my bars!

The ice test would work great here. Silver has the highest thermal conductivity of any metal, and lead has lousy thermal conductivity. So you should see a huge difference in ice melt speed between the two bars.

For coins and small 1oz -2oz bars I built the rig using two hard-drive mags and it works great. You don’t have to worry about the angle of the piece you’re testing. When you use two mags bolted together with a little slot between then you can pass the coin/bar through and feel the pull of the piece even if you hold it straight up and down or any angle. I’ve only seen one or two vids on how to make this type rig and they work so much better. I’m thinking about making a vid showing what I’m talking about. So many people just don’t understand the concept of mag testing silver. They think if it doesn’t STICK then all is good. That’s just not the case.

You should cut about a half in off the height of that bar so we can see the internal composition.

If anyone is wondering..he got that rare earth magnet from an old 3.5" desktop harddrive. Each HD comes with two of these. Took me about 15 minutes & a couple of stripped screwdriver bits to remove them. It would also help to do the ping & weight test along with this magnet test. Excellent video

diamagnetic means it repells magnets.  you are talking about eddy currents. because silver is verry verry conductive it will attract a magnet when you move a magnet across it's surface. because it's generating an electric current and basicly turning the silver into an electromagnet

So awesome feeling the force in action. I just tried it for the first time with a kilo bar. Sure enough when the neodymium magnet gets within an inch of the bar, you feel a resistance. It's not nearly as strong as trying to stick the negative sides of two separate magnets together. It's like 1/100 of that, bit still enough to really feel.

This is one of several bars that were sold to people for a bit less than the spot price (about 10%-20% less). One of the people was kind enough to let us borrow one for testing.

One thing to get straight is that "pulling" 2 magnets apart requires a LOT more force than "sliding" them apart. You can slide (ie: separate) two n40 magnets with just one hand, if they are the same size as is apparently used in this video. In conclusion, if you can separate two magnets by pulling, not sliding, them with one hand, then they are probably not strong/big enough for this test.

@beaverbox The best test for gold plated (or layered) tungsten bars is an ultrasonic thickness gauge. Using a magnet test might or might not work well as a test, depending on how much gold (or silver) was over the tungsten (the magnet test would work best if you had a sample of a specific fake bar, and wanted to test others to see if they were the same as the fake one).

Thanks!!  as of today......... You have 28 Haters which makes me believe...... They are 28 Fake silver sellers.

@machinationu No, mixing copper or aluminum with lead would greatly reduce the conductivity. The magnet would slide down MUCH faster.

In most cases, rounds and bars are treated the same when you sell them. 1 ounce silver bars often have a slightly higher premium (when buying or selling).

Interesting video , thanks for creating this. Do other metals have diametric qualities less than silver but greater than lead ? Always wondered why Bullion counterfeiters didn't alloy some small amount of steel into their bars to simulate silvers diametric quality.

Copper is diamagnetic (lead is, too), but neither exhibit the behavior nearly as much as silver. Copper is less diamagnetic than lead. Copper is less dense than silver, so weighing an coin/bar and comparing the dimensions to a real one would easily discover a copper-based fake (unlike lead, which can weigh the same as silver when alloyed with other metals).

Or you can just smell, and taste lead. (Don't recommend licking lead) Silver, and Gold do not have a distinguishable smell, or taste. Copper has a strong scent, and taste, steel does not have very strong smell, but for me, it has a strong taste. This will more then likely not work if the product in question is plated in the real stuff. Hopefully this post is helpful.

Excellent demonstration. Thanks for sharing the information.

I have an engelhard 100oz poured and I’m wondering if it is normal for the sides to have grinding scuffs as well as parts of the bar showing a copper tint to it…copper tint mostly appears in the small pores