Counterfeit Silver

I recently sold some silver to APMEX.  I boxed up what I wanted to sell and mailed it all off to them.   Days later, I get a phone call telling me that four 1oz bars and one 1oz round were counterfeit.  I was a bit shocked, because I’m pretty sure one of them (the round) came from APMEX themselves years ago, but I can’t prove it.

I wanted to see that they were counterfeit myself, so they agreed to send them back, but only after being cut in half.

So after getting them back, I did some standard silver tests. There's a magnet test which I couldn't really discern much from because my rare-earth magnet is too small (so I think).  There's an ice cube test, which purportedly isn't so great if the fake uses copper, but the best test as the video later in this paragraph indicates is the specific gravity test.  Since I didn't have a $135 electronic ultrasound thickness measuring device (like in the video) I decided to just do the specific gravity test (using this method https://youtu.be/K7rkVUaXTdc?t=4m57s).  Yup.  They're counterfeit.  F#$%!

The four bars (with color paint on them to make them look trashy), I bought from a colleague, who accepted them as payment for a loan of can’t remember how much from some dude.  I think I paid around $20 each for the bars ($80 Total) about 2 years ago.

Anyway, here are the results.

I guess I’m glad the lesson was only an $80 one.  Still not so sure where I got the round from if it wasn’t from APMEX.  I cannot remember ever buying silver rounds from any other source.