Tungsten, gold, plate, India, scandal, IMF

A recent scandal has erupted in that gold bars are in fact tungsten gold and sold to India via the IMF, says Gold Basics:

It looks that a big part of Gold bars in Banks vaults are in fact tugsten plated gold , the scandal is just starting to leak and it could cause the burst of the Gold bubble , if the general public starts losing faith in the gold not being able to spot the real from the fake cause it wouldn't be too difficult to make convincing fake gold bars out of gold-plated tungsten (which costs $30 a pound compared to $12,000 a pound for gold).

Bad Credit Advisor gives an update:

 

Probably the only way to discover a fake without scratching your bar or coin or without performing some chemical analysis, is to drop suspicious gold object against a solid hardwood desk, as long as you do not mind having some nicks and small dents on it. Dropping a real gold coin will produce a very particular ringing sound quite different from the one that tungsten counterfeit coin makes.

Before you panic and start dropping your gold, understand that tungsten is the metal which is extremely difficult to work with. Besides being brittle, it has the highest known melting point of any non alloyed metal at 3,422°C or almost 6,192°F. So such counterfeit gold requires quite a bit of investment and knowledge, which both of course are available our there. So it is important to buy your gold bullion from reputable dealers, but even they can make a mistake and unknowingly sell you something else.

Safe Haven has a good piece on how to tell the difference from gold and tungsten bars:

 

As far as the properties of tungsten versus gold, they are similar. But there are important differences, per the Ron Paul blog at dailypaul.com. In coins, there is a difference in the ring. The speed of sound thru tungsten is different from that with gold (as is detectible with a cheap ultrasound scanner). Tungsten is very hard and brittle (with a higher melting point) while gold is soft and pliable (on a hardness scale, it is alleged that talc at 1 means gold at 2.5, tungsten at 7.5 and diamonds at 10.0).

The atomic weight of gold is said to be 196.96 versus 183.86 for tungsten. Gold allegedly has a specific gravity of 19.32 and tungsten of 19.25. Precision measuring and weighing devices (which are now available all over the world) could measure a bar and easily calculate its exact volume and weight for either gold or for tungsten. These devices would immediately detect tungsten bars in contrast to gold bars.