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Metal purity

Metal purity

Playing with the purity of precious metals in order to artificially increase weight has been done throughout history and is one of the biggest problems to tackle. The fineness or purity of precious metals, that is the weight of fine metal therein in proportion to the total weight, can be modified by adding other metals or impurities. Detecting or verifying precious metal purity is a complicated and expensive process. Possible solutions are based on magnetic tests, acid tests on stone, ultrasonic tests, testing electrical properties, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and spectrography. For end-users, the cost of these tests is often out of reach. In the case of minted products or bullion products, end-users often use the brand reputation of the refinery as a means to authenticate the quality, value and genuineness of the product. This has other problems, however, as it is very easy to create lookalikes of bullion and minted products.