Today I got the PM verifier device in the mail.
Sigma Metalytics makes them.
The only thing that can reliably detect heavily plated/coated tungsten blanks in gold coins without breaking or scratching them, and is not astronomically priced
Which even xrf guns can't do
Works great for me so far. Detects tunsden, which I got two samples of.
So far tested few coins and went through my collection of about 50-60 pieces of silverware, accumulated throughout early 2000th from eBay.
Here are the results:
70% - yes, real sterling
30% - appear to be just 90% silver, not 92.5
One my huge spoon turned out to be totally fake - no silver in it at all
Much better result than I was afraid of
I still have those GIM rounds with Masonic eye, which will be testing them next and suspicious silver bars of which I got quite a few and have no memory where I got them from
I am so very excited that now, finally, there is an affordable, but not cheap, device that can protect us , bugs, against those dumn Chinese fakers.
If you don't know what I am talking about - google videos for pressious metal verifier, sigma metalytics