Perth Mint Sold Billions In Diluted Gold

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Perth Mint Sold Billions In Diluted Gold To China, Tried To Cover It Up; Report​


The shocking thing in the article to me is this:

Gold doping is a somewhat accepted practice in the industry and is not illegal, but is high risk for refiners, as it lowers the quality of bullion by adding impurities like silver or copper.


Zerohedge

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I don't understand why it's news because once you read past the headline you get to this:

“At all times the gold bars the Perth Mint produced and sold contained at least 99.99 per cent gold, as per their specifications.... In September 2021, the Perth Mint was made aware that some of its one-kilogram bars may not have met the non-gold specifications of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE). The SGE specifications demand that the non-gold component – that is, 0.01 per cent of the bar or 100 parts per million (ppm) – contains no more than 50 ppm silver.”
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The "Diluted Gold" headline is misleading. According to the article the controversy is over the composition of the 1ppm portion of the 99.99% pure gold that was never gold anyhow.
 
@Catfish is 100% correct: the article is totally misleading by using the phrase "diluted gold". There is absolutely NO dilution of the gold content whatsoever.

Here's the SGE Standard:


By this standard, the chemical composition for Grade I (Au99.99) says the following:
Au: Greater than or equal to 99.99%

For the impurity content, the following must be equal to or less than the following percentages:
Ag: 0.005
Cu: 0.002
Fe: 0.002
Pb: 0.001
Bi: 0.002
Sb: 0.001

With a total maximum impurity content of 0.01 or less.

If you were to assume EXACTLY those levels of impurities, that would be a total of 0.013%, which is not allowed because it exceeds the maximum allowed impurity level of 0.01%.

The article reports that Perth Mint maintained a minimum 99.99% gold content in their gold. So the reality is that there is no actual loss whatsoever in the gold content, which is really what the SGE Standard is all about when it comes to the bottom line.

The SGE Standard of 0.005% or less of Ag (silver) works out to 50 ppm or less. Having more than this, per the SGE Standard, is not allowed, even if the overall total impurity level is less than or equal to 0.01%. I don't know why this should be a problem, since silver is a greater value than any of the other five impurities that are allowed. Which would make these particular Perth Mint ingots more valuable, not less.

So nobody is being "cheated" on these particular gold ingots from Perth Mint...unless one were to say that because of the higher silver content they're technically being bought/sold/traded at a slightly lower cost than they should be. Which is what the standard is all about.
 
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RetiredUSNChief said:
I don't know why this should be a problem, since silver is a greater value than any of the other five impurities that are allowed.
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Don’t know, but my guesses would be that it’s hard to get out or affects the working characteristics of the alloy, reducing the ability to use it for industrial processes.
 
ronn47 said:

Perth Mint Sold Billions In Diluted Gold To China, Tried To Cover It Up; Report​


The shocking thing in the article to me is this:

Gold doping is a somewhat accepted practice in the industry and is not illegal, but is high risk for refiners, as it lowers the quality of bullion by adding impurities like silver or copper.


Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com www.zerohedge.com
Click to expand...
WAY WAY better than some 10 kilo bars of gold the Bank of England sent to Uganda a few years back. Uganda did a full assay on them and found out they were tungsten with a fairly thick electroplate of gold. BoE made them good, but ... sheesh. These central bankers are thugs and crooks on the level of the Medellin Cartels.
 
GymB said:
Don’t know, but my guesses would be that it’s hard to get out or affects the working characteristics of the alloy, reducing the ability to use it for industrial processes.
Click to expand...

I don't think so...at least not exactly.

I suspect it's more likely to be tied to the economics behind gold as a medium of trade/exchange. Those economics include the physical characteristics of the gold ingots itself. It has to conform to the manufacturing standards with respect to mass, dimensions, and density, as well as not exhibiting defects such as voids, surface smoothness, appearance, etc.

It's all geared towards a standard that ensures a given quantity by several means will have a known gold content.
 
noway2 said:
That is one definition of inflation, or inflating your currency.
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This practice of counterfeiting and inflating currency goes back AT LEAST 3,000 years.
Egypt was the first entity to "coin" gold that we know of. Before that, gold silver and other metals were monetized by weight only. Egypt, in a stroke of financial genius, coined gold so that something issued BY THE STATE had a uniform purity and weight. This practice was picked up by Greece, which used it to build fiscal wealth on a level the world had not witnessed before.
Anyway....
The Mesopotamian world before around 1400 AD used WEIGHTS of gold and silver for coinage. The documents we have (including biblical texts) refer to WEIGHTS, not units of coinage or currency. In the Hebrew scriptures, we have frequent references to a "shekel" and other measured amounts of gold (and wheat, oil, etc).
All that is to set up this.
People stole and inflated "currency" then, and were just as creative about it. One of the things condemned, for example, in the book of Proverbs, is "dishonest measures" also referred to as "dishonest weights." The practice of a crooked merchant was to have TWO sets of measurements, one for buying and one for selling. If you were selling wheat for gold, you used the set which claimed to be an "ounce" (or a "shekel") but was actually hollowed out a bit and covered over, and only weighed maybe 80% of a shekel. It was common practice for people to bring their own sets of weights to avoid being defrauded, which led to vociferous arguments (if you have never seen Arabs and/or Jews argue, you are missing a treat! They are really something. That kind of emotion among us goyim would result in someone being shot pretty quick!), and a segregation of honest and dishonest merchants in a marketplace.
Anyway, when you see the verses about "God hates dishonest scales" (they did that, too!) or "separate measures" ... that is what it is talking about. Governments - when they have exclusive power to coin money - simply have a more technological version of dishonest scales and measurements... only today, the whole practice of "measuring" anything has gone out the window. There is literally nothing to measure. When that happens, and there is no hard boundary to prevent issuing currency at will.... guess what? They issue it AT WILL, and ruin it. This has happened EVERY SINGLE TIME IN HISTORY. EVERY single time. I defy you to find a time anywhere in history... any peoples, any culture, where the state has issued paper currency and NOT inflated its value to zero. Go back to the Chinese Ming dynasty...., or wherever you wish.

You really believe western nations have some kind of exception here? Wise up. Get some gold and silver and protect yourself, or at least your kids.
 
tanstaafl72555 said:
This practice of counterfeiting and inflating currency goes back AT LEAST 3,000 years.
Egypt was the first entity to "coin" gold that we know of. Before that, gold silver and other metals were monetized by weight only. Egypt, in a stroke of financial genius, coined gold so that something issued BY THE STATE had a uniform purity and weight. This practice was picked up by Greece, which used it to build fiscal wealth on a level the world had not witnessed before.
Anyway....
The Mesopotamian world before around 1400 AD used WEIGHTS of gold and silver for coinage. The documents we have (including biblical texts) refer to WEIGHTS, not units of coinage or currency. In the Hebrew scriptures, we have frequent references to a "shekel" and other measured amounts of gold (and wheat, oil, etc).
All that is to set up this.
People stole and inflated "currency" then, and were just as creative about it. One of the things condemned, for example, in the book of Proverbs, is "dishonest measures" also referred to as "dishonest weights." The practice of a crooked merchant was to have TWO sets of measurements, one for buying and one for selling. If you were selling wheat for gold, you used the set which claimed to be an "ounce" (or a "shekel") but was actually hollowed out a bit and covered over, and only weighed maybe 80% of a shekel. It was common practice for people to bring their own sets of weights to avoid being defrauded, which led to vociferous arguments (if you have never seen Arabs and/or Jews argue, you are missing a treat! They are really something. That kind of emotion among us goyim would result in someone being shot pretty quick!), and a segregation of honest and dishonest merchants in a marketplace.
Anyway, when you see the verses about "God hates dishonest scales" (they did that, too!) or "separate measures" ... that is what it is talking about. Governments - when they have exclusive power to coin money - simply have a more technological version of dishonest scales and measurements... only today, the whole practice of "measuring" anything has gone out the window. There is literally nothing to measure. When that happens, and there is no hard boundary to prevent issuing currency at will.... guess what? They issue it AT WILL, and ruin it. This has happened EVERY SINGLE TIME IN HISTORY. EVERY single time. I defy you to find a time anywhere in history... any peoples, any culture, where the state has issued paper currency and NOT inflated its value to zero. Go back to the Chinese Ming dynasty...., or wherever you wish.

You really believe western nations have some kind of exception here? Wise up. Get some gold and silver and protect yourself, or at least your kids.
Click to expand...

Coin design evolved in such a way as to help prevent fraud, too.

For example, the ridged edges of coins came about as a means to indicate whether or not a coin had been "shaved" on the edges, reducing the amount of gold or silver actually present. This also helped not only the people who used the coins as a medium of exchange, but the countries who issued them to determine when coins needed to be taken out of circulation.

It's a fascinating history.
 
FWIW, the practice of counterfeiting then ALSO include degraded purity of the metals. This is why the weights were usually "dust" gold or fine flakes. It was harder to adulterate, as you could visually inspect the gold and see its relative purity.
 
I remember early on in my life, while likely the US was still on a gold standard, of coins being devalued. Pennies became copper coated, nickels we’re debased, and quarters became bimetallic. Even back then I could tell folks thought it was wrong and fundamentally worth less, but we were told it was backed by the State so it was still good.
 
noway2 said:
I remember early on in my life, while likely the US was still on a gold standard, of coins being devalued. Pennies became copper coated, nickels we’re debased, and quarters became bimetallic. Even back then I could tell folks thought it was wrong and fundamentally worth less, but we were told it was backed by the State so it was still good.
Click to expand...
I actually have about 300 dollars of pennies before 1990. They are all 90% copper. At one time I had a thousand dollars worth of nickels, as those were the last coins to be debased. A nickel was actually worth close to .05 dollars in metal content for a long time. In 2008 I bought a thousand dollar of nickels, but they were so bulky I traded them in. Can't remember if I bot a handgun or silver with them.
 
tanstaafl72555 said:
I actually have about 300 dollars of pennies before 1990. They are all 90% copper. At one time I had a thousand dollars worth of nickels, as those were the last coins to be debased. A nickel was actually worth close to .05 dollars in metal content for a long time. In 2008 I bought a thousand dollar of nickels, but they were so bulky I traded them in. Can't remember if I bot a handgun or silver with them.
Click to expand...

The cutoff was 1982, the last year they minted copper pennies.

From 1983 on, it's been copper plated zinc alloy.

Scratch them and see.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
The cutoff was 1982, the last year they minted copper pennies.

From 1983 on, it's been copper plated zinc alloy.

Scratch them and see.
Click to expand...
And they keep increasing the amount of zinc in relation to the copper. A penny made in the last few years feels and sounds different from one 10 years ago.
 
ronn47 said:

Perth Mint Sold Billions In Diluted Gold To China, Tried To Cover It Up; Report​


The shocking thing in the article to me is this:

Gold doping is a somewhat accepted practice in the industry and is not illegal, but is high risk for refiners, as it lowers the quality of bullion by adding impurities like silver or copper.


Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com www.zerohedge.com
Click to expand...
I find it supremely ironic that the country that's made it's fortune on providing knock off products is complaining about a knock off product.
But like others said, it's still 99.99%, they're just bitching about what makes up the 0.01%.
 
RedneckFur said:
And they keep increasing the amount of zinc in relation to the copper. A penny made in the last few years feels and sounds different from one 10 years ago.
Click to expand...

The alloy composition of the penny hasn't changed since October 1982, when it went to 97.5" zinc and 2.5" copper.

It is significantly lighter (38.6 grains) than the previous alloy (48 grains), which was 95% copper and 5% zinc.

Penny composition (and size) has varied throughout its historystarting out virtually pure copper at 208 grains in 1793. I's been copper/nickel (88/12), and various alloys of bronze (typically 95% copper), and even zinc plated steel in 1943. Metals from various sources have been used, too, including salvaged ammunition shells from 1944 to 1946.

During the inflation era of the 73s, the Mint even tested aluminum and bronze clad steel, eventually producint 1.5 million aluminum coins before rejecting the idea.
 
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