Silver Ring Test at the JH MINT

[Michael775100]

just acid test it

[dayadayadaya123]

did you weight the bars? I have a 100 oz stackable bar that weights 3117 grams.

[lh2000]

IMO the ring test is not fail proof. The experienced silver dealers always use the water displacement test. The volume is a little less than 300ml per 100 ounce of 999+.

If it rings, it is silver, if it isn't silver, it doesn't ring - but If it doesn't ring, it doesn't mean it isn't silver <-- excuse me if this sounds a bit patronizing to some, but some people just don't know how to deductively reason.

[MarlenaKeller]

I can't hear it ring bcause yourr talking the whole time!!......

[flyermay]

That's not how you perform a ring test. The point of a ring test is making sure that 2 coins of the same type have the same ring; if the ring is different, then one of the coins is a counterfeit. Is not meant to be used to test whether or not silver bars ring.

[jbarba]

They are really dumb to actually not read the labels on those bars. Wish that I knew where their garbage went cause I bet the were stupid enough to throw away that bar that was 65.8% silver. lol

[berlinwood39]

@100silverpizza not neccaceraly becuz with the fake engelhard bars it was a centameter or to in the bar were the lead or grahfite or what ever they put inside the bar

[TomAllenUK]

Wow that was an expensive test

[ilovehumvee]

@TomAllenUK

No an expensive test. He still has 100 oz of .999 pure silver. Worth the same per oz.

[bennygypsy23]

Can I have that bar!!!!!???? Lol

[fizzyfizzz]

@bennygypsy23 lol

[steventherunner]

omg you cut that beautiful bar :(

[nickrohn93]

why don't you just compare the atomic mass with the weight?

[MegaHelicobacter]

i told you..different shapes produce different sound.

[KDanagger]

A specific gravity test is very reliable and is non-destructive. The nitric acid test can also be useless on a bar unless you cut it in half.

A fake bar that would pass the specific gravity test would be very difficult to produce.

[jlbleeker]

At least you did the experiment, and learned something.

No second guessing

[vorkev1]

if you look at the bar its not .999 its .658

[OneStirringThePot]

@vorkev1 Good call!

[martinzwanenburg]

@vorkev1

quess the can`t read numbers,.....

because you are right!

[vorkev1]

@martinzwanenburg i no i meen come on. thare so dumb i could probly trade them a $1 bill for a $10 bill.

[JackExEck]

@vorkev1 It is 999 ... look at hallmark orientation ... same as other J M bar . Why would they put purity up side down?

[gasdorf]

2 very nice 50 once bars now

[Rhal95]

Cast metals have different properties depending on how quickly they cooled. If any thick casting cools quickly, it gets a weak crystal structure in the core, sounding different.

The sound test would only work for stamped metals, like coins.

[itsanameisntit]

Question: Molybdenum looks exactly like silver, and has almost the exact same density. Therefore, if you cut a bar of Molydenum in two, it would look exactly the same through and through. How would you know silver from Molybdenum?

[mfith]

Put it in a plastic bag and try the ping test....

[rawdog268]

the shape of the bar can affect the tone/lenth of ring also,just like a bell

[RyanB0011]

probably have about half an ounce worth of silver shards/dust on the ground now. Thickness of that blade x the width, depth and height of that bar pulverized.

Nooooooooooo! Lost forever!

[Anothercoilgun]

Silver or not, test was flawed. Recreate the same situation for each subject. 3 pieces of heavy metal will change the table characteristics. Next time, place one bar at a time in the same location. Then get a similar bar and compare them. JH bars might sound different from other from the start.

[beninmelb]

Gotta put that puppy back in a furnace now.

[rolficus]

fire it in a furnace if it comes out white its pure silver if its dark then you got fools silver lol

[yogiudo]

You're best bet is to use Mohs hardness combined with mass / volume ratio.

However it looked to me like the ring test done in this video was done incorrectly because the bar should be suspended.

At least, that is what I was told.

[ltsgt1]

I think it's a lot easier to test the bar's density to find out whether the silver bar is a dud or not. The density for silver is 10.5g/ml. All you have to do is weight the bar and then submerge the bar in a measuring cup full of water. A 100 troy ounce bar should occupy approximately 298ml of space in the water.

[ltsgt1]

@ltsgt1 The density of lead is closest to silver. It's density is 11.36g/ml. A 100 troy ounce lead bar takes up approximately 275.7ml of water. Since silver is lighter than lead, a 100 troy ounce silver bar occupies 22.3ml more space than a silver plated lead bar.

[irichard]

Thanks for doing what I would not do to mines.

[swiiiish]

fail.

[RainstormGB]

is it molybdenum 10.11

did u test the SP

10.49?

[captvanhalen]

Send them to me, i'll let you know if they are real. ;)

Seriously, thanks for doing this and sharing your knowledge with us.

[funwjoshnjenn]

while it's true ring test isn't accurate, how can you say it's silver just because the inside is solid metal? Couldn't it be something else alloyed?

[Claybreaker2]

"Thanks for being on Mythbusters" HAHAHA

[oc5nsli341nforce4]

Now that is interesting good work. Now why didn't this bar ring? Did you chem test it?

[chaseef]

I have some silver maples that don't ring. I didnt think someone would go out of their way to fake them, but this helps reassure me.

[Negativerything]

Yeah, silver maples tend to not ring well, don't worry, I have some too that are poor ringers. I think it might have something to do with the fineness or the shape, or maybe both combined.

[terbotedsiPhone]

the horizontal stripe in the middle of the cut bar is because we eventually cut the bar in half with a radial hand saw, in two passes cutting only halfway through on each side at a time, creating a stripe. with the two cuts, we actually still hand to bend and break the two sides apart with force, which further enhanced the stripe effect. this is misleading in this video because the saw we show being used didn't actually work. the table jig didn't cut the bar. a skill saw did.

[artdeco101010]

Great video Jason, I love seeing the ins and outs of your day to day operation and how you handle the different situations that come up in your business.

[pinup22]

All the more reason to buy BRAND NEW bars direct from legit well known sources.

[Zwikster]

that is weird. I wonder why it didnt ring nicely??? anyone know?? hmmm,,,,,,

[artdeco101010]

@zwikster - I've always heard that the reason the extruded bars always ring out and the poured bars sometimes don't is dependent on the the cooling rate after the pour. Some bars end up being poured in more than one shot when they refill the hopper and the first part getting ahead in the cooling cycle creates a surface plane between the two pour volumes that deadens the ring. You can see something like that in the bar they cut here.

[jayrush01]

i dont know why people test silver NOW for being fake. silver dosent cost that much right now. for someone to hollow out a bar and fill it with something else is to much effort to fake something so cheap in the first placed. but in 5 years im gona ring test the shit out of everything

[JohnStriderofDoom]

@jayrush01

Enough 100 or 1000 ozt bars would make it worth it if produced in massive quantities.

Why are there fake Morgans and Peace dollars? Those are only 1 oz, how worth it were those? Not even rare dates/mintmarks either...

Tried the ring test on a roll of '87 ASEs, everything checked out but the ring test and a few dealers have given them the pass. Kind of funny how that works...

Thanks for posting up the vid, very interesting.

[drutter]

@jayrush01

True, silver will be worth more in the future, but that doesn't mean somebody who intends to make a killing off fake bars in the FUTURE hasn't already produced them today. It's not impossible that they're already out there somewhere.

[askmeif]

It would appear that a ringing bar is good evidence that the bar is legit, but a non ringing bar does not necessarily mean it is fake. Thanks for the lesson guys.