Largest Private Refinery Discovers Gold-Plated Tungsten Bar
By Patrick A. Heller on March 2nd, 2010
Recently, the German television station ProSieben ran a news story covering W. C. Heraeus in Hanau, Germany, the world’s largest privately owned refinery. In the story, Wilfried Hörner, the head of the gold foundry, shows a 500 gram bar (16.0755 troy ounces) received from an unidentified bank. The bar had the right physical dimensions to be an authentic gold bar, but one of the Heraeus employees suspected something funny. After the bar was cut in half, you can see that the inside is tungsten, with only a coating of gold on the outside.
最近，德國電視台 ProSieben播出一單新聞故事，報導德國哈瑙的世界上最大的私有提煉廠WC賀利氏。在故事中，黃金鑄造的頭頭維爾弗里德霍納，展示一條 從未經辨明銀行收到的500克金條（16.0755盎司）。金條有真實金條的正確物質尺寸，但賀利氏其中一個員工懷疑一些是有趣的。在金條被攔腰截斷後，你可以看到裡面是鎢，只有外面的表層是黃金。
You can watch this news story on You Tube, where it was posted February 28, at
你可以在You-tube看這新聞故事，它被張貼在2月28日：
Last fall, Rob Kirby of Kirby Analytics in Toronto reported that China’s central bank had discovered some 400-ounce gold-plated tungsten bars among those it had recently received from bonded warehouses. It was later learned that at least four counterfeit bars were found and that all had come from sources in the United States. As suspicions grow about counterfeit bars among those held in bonded warehouses for delivery against either COMEX or London Bullion Market Association contracts or shares of exchange traded funds, investors could panic. So, you can understand that there has been almost a total blackout on news coverage on this story.
去年秋天，多倫多柯比分析的羅布柯比報告，中國央行已經發現一些 400盎司的鍍金鎢條，夾在那些最近從抵押倉庫收到的。其後得知，至少有四條假冒金條被發現，和所有的皆來自美國的來源。由於對那些冒牌金條放在抵押倉庫有待交付的懷疑增加，針對無綸COMEX或倫敦貴金屬市場協會的合約，或股票交易所基金買賣，投資者可能會恐慌。所以，你可以理解，這個故事出現了幾乎完全封鎖的新聞報導。
Tungsten is the only lower value metal that has a specific density close enough to gold to fabricate passable counterfeit pieces of the same size and weight as genuine coins and ingots. Over the years, there have been a few isolated reports of smaller coins and bars found to have been drilled to remove some of the gold which was replaced with tungsten. However, it is far more profitable to fabricate larger original bars of tungsten that are then gold-plated.
Thus far, the commodity exchanges have disclaimed of any responsibility for the purity of the gold bars they are delivering against contracts. As stories of gold-plated tungsten bars in bonded warehouses continue to appear, I expect the commodity exchanges are going to be forced to modify their business practices to provide a guaranty of purity for any bars they deliver.
The process of non-destructive testing of bars to check for counterfeits involves very expensive equipment and is time consuming. It is beyond the means of almost all investors and coin dealers. For maximize safety, I recommend purchasing only smaller size coins and ingots, say two ounces of gold content or less, and only deal with a company that has a lengthy track record and in-house staff expertise (unlike the bank that took in this counterfeit 500 gram bar). If you have purchased coins and ingots from unknown sources, you may want have them checked out by an experienced independent third party.
In contrast, the last things I would want to invest in are large gold bars stored in bonded warehouses in unallocated storage. If it turns out that the warehouse holding your bars has too many counterfeit bars in their inventory, it could go bankrupt. That would leave holders of unallocated inventory as unsecured creditors of the bankrupt company, and not as owners of gold.
Because the existence of counterfeit gold-plated tungsten bars could have such a huge impact on the financial markets, there is a huge potential for deception and misinformation to be passed around. Be very careful about automatically believing any story you may hear. For your own protection, it would be better to take physical possession of the smaller sizes of gold coins and bars now, and know that what you own genuine solid gold.
Patrick A. Heller owns Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Michigan and writes "Liberty's Outlook," a monthly newsletter covering rare coins and precious metals. Past issues can be found online at http://www.libertycoinservice.com/ Pat Heller is also the gold market commentator for Numismatic News. Past columns online at
http://numismaster.com/
http://news.coinupdate.com/largest-private-refinery-discovers-gold-plated-tungsten-bar-0171/
羅富齊牽連入假金條醜聞
沒有留言:
發佈留言