How to Spot a Fake Gold Bar
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The honest starting point: you are very unlikely to detect a good fake by looking at it. Modern counterfeits are made to defeat casual inspection, and a buyer holding a bar under a shop light is doing casual inspection.
So this article is arranged in the order that actually protects you. Where you buy matters more than how you inspect. Inspection is the backstop, not the plan.
1. Buy where fakes cannot survive
A licensed bullion dealer has every incentive not to sell you a counterfeit and the equipment to make sure they do not. They buy from accredited sources, they test what comes in over the counter, and their business does not survive a reputation for passing fakes.
The risk sits almost entirely in the places without that: online marketplaces, classified listings, social media sellers, private deals, and holiday purchases abroad.
In Singapore, dealers in precious metals register with the Ministry of Law under the Precious Stones and Precious Metals Act. You can ask, and you should.
2. Treat a below-market price as the warning it is
Gold is a commodity with a published global price. Nobody has a secret supply of cheap gold.
If an offer is meaningfully below spot, one of these is true: it is not gold, it is not the weight stated, it is stolen, or there is no bar at all. There is no fifth option where you have simply found a bargain.
This single rule catches more fraud than every physical test combined.
3. Check the packaging before you check the metal
For a modern retail bar, the assay card is a large part of the security.
- Is the card sealed and undamaged? Tamper-evident packaging is meant to show interference. Look for reseals, bubbles, uneven edges, a card that has been slit and glued.
- Does the serial number on the card match the number on the bar? They should be identical. A mismatch ends the conversation.
- Is the printing crisp? Blurred text, wrong fonts, off colours and poor registration are common on counterfeit cards, because the card is often easier to fake convincingly than the bar.
- Does the card look like the refiner's current packaging? Refiners change designs. A quick look at the refiner's own site tells you what the genuine article looks like.
And the corollary: do not break a bar out of its packaging. An intact sealed bar is both easier to verify and easier to resell.
4. Weight and dimensions
Gold is extraordinarily dense. Most substitute metals are not, which means a fake that matches the weight will be the wrong size, and one that matches the size will be the wrong weight.
Weigh it on an accurate scale and measure it with calipers, then compare against the refiner's published specification for that exact product. A bar that is even slightly thick or long for its stated weight is telling you something.
The complication worth knowing: tungsten has a density very close to gold, which is why it is the material of choice for serious counterfeits. Weight and dimensions alone will not catch a well-made tungsten-cored fake. They will catch the cheap ones, which are most of them.
5. The magnet test, and its limits
Gold is not magnetic. Neither is a bar that is mostly tungsten.
So a magnet sticking to your bar is conclusive proof of a problem, but a magnet not sticking proves very little. Use it as a quick disqualifier, not as a clearance.
The more useful variant is the slide test: a strong neodymium magnet slid down a tilted gold bar will descend noticeably slowly, because gold's conductivity creates an opposing field. It is a better signal than simple attraction, though still not decisive.
6. The ping test
Struck gently, precious metals ring at a characteristic frequency and hold the note. Base metals produce a duller, shorter sound.
There are phone apps that analyse this. It is genuinely useful as a fast screen, more so on coins than on bars, and it is not proof on its own.
7. The tests that actually settle it
Everything above is a screen. These are the answers.
- Veriscan, for PAMP bars. The surface pattern is recorded like a fingerprint and checked against PAMP's own database. This is the strongest consumer-accessible verification there is.
- Ultrasound testing, which measures how sound travels through the bar and will reveal a core of a different metal. This is what catches tungsten.
- XRF analysis, which reads elemental composition without damaging the bar. Note it reads the surface, so it should be used alongside ultrasound rather than instead of it.
- Specific gravity testing, which measures true density by water displacement. Cheap, effective on solid fakes, defeated by tungsten cores.
A serious dealer will have ultrasound or XRF and will run it in front of you.
8. What to do if you think you have a fake
Do not damage it. Do not drill, cut or file it. If it is genuine you have just destroyed its resale value, and if it is fake you have destroyed the evidence.
Take it to a licensed dealer for non-destructive testing. If it is confirmed counterfeit and you bought it from a trader, that is a police matter, and having the item intact along with your purchase records matters.
The short version
- Buy from licensed dealers, and the rest of this list rarely matters
- A below-market price is the single loudest warning
- Keep the packaging sealed and check serials match
- Weight and dimensions catch cheap fakes, not tungsten
- Only ultrasound, XRF or Veriscan actually settle it
- Never damage a suspect bar
FAZ Gold tests on site, and you see the result before anything is agreed. We are a MinLaw-registered precious metals dealer, our gold comes from LBMA-accredited refiners with intact assay packaging, and we are happy to verify a bar you bought elsewhere. Counter at 10 Jalan Besar, #B1-19/20, Sim Lim Tower, open daily 10.30am to 8pm, or call +65 6209 1448.