A story on fake gold

[alvin]

Watched a youtube video, talking about fake gold.

The story happened in Nanking recently (there is a book in Barnes & Nobles, "Rape of Nanking, 1937", same city). A couple opened a pawn store there, their main business is trading gold stuffs, such as bracelets, necklaces, rings, etc. They pay cash buying gold, and resell, there is a price difference, so they make living. They have been in this business for more than a decade.

One day, the husband was out, two Manchurian women came to the store saying they urgently need cash and wanted to sell their jewelries. The wife tried to persuade sellers borrowing some cash paying interest instead of selling their gold. But sellers felt that amount of money was not enough and insisted selling a gold bracelet and a gold necklace, total weight was about two ounces. The wife carefully check the items visually, color was correct for 999 gold, and she cut one end of the jewelry open with a sharp knife, checked inside carefully under a loupe, also looks good. So she paid $2000 cash to the sellers.

A few hours after this transaction, the husband came back. After viewing the items, he felt the overall color tone was a little bit off. He's upset, and decided to use another conventional method to test -- he used a torch burning those two pieces. After the items cooling down, the color did not change. That's very positive. Most fake gold jewelry cannot stand torch burning without tarnishing. He relaxed..