Just saw this listing and thought it was very misleading... just a warning to those who may be late night Ebaying~ What BS. [h=1]This bar is one troy ounce of .999 Fine German Silver.[/h][h=1]German Silver is a highly collectable metal that is an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc and these Silver Star art bars are rare hard to find collectors items. I haven't been able to find them anywhere else.[/h][h=1]To be clear German Silver is not the same as Elemental Silver. This bar contains little to no .999 pure Elemental Silver, this is an alloy.[/h] http://www.ebay.com/itm/One-Day-Lis...601?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c2ed32ff9
At least there are no bids with a little less than an hour to go. Perhaps there is a lone sniper waiting until the last 10 seconds.
That is what you English language people get for using "German Silver" with regard to coins that do indeed not contain any silver. In German we call such alloys "Neusilber" (ie. new silver). Typically that would be Cu-Ni-Zn as stated in the item description. Well, the seller does not claim it's silver, and you can return the item within 14 days. But whoever produced the bar sure wanted to be misleading ... Christian
These bars are manufactured to deceive, and here is why. You can make these bars out of copper, which people know fully well what copper is. You can also make them out of nickel, which people know what it is. But if you ask most people what "German" Silver is, they would probably think it's nothing but silver from....Germany. How does "fine French silver", or "fine Russian silver" sound to you? It sounds like it came from France or Russia. We also have the American Silver Eagle. Now here is where it get's interesting. Besides naming the bar "German" silver, to make people think it's from Germany, it says .999 fine. Now wait a minute, German silver cannot be .999 fine. There are other metals in it. How can a mixture of metals be .999 fine? It can't. Maybe .543 copper,.432 Nickel, etc. That would be like calling a 14K gold ring .999 fine. So now we have added a fineness to it, this is the 2nd step in deceiving someone. Now we have a one-two punch in deceiving someone. No one really collects these bars, they are just sold, in order to scam other people. But really, this is pretty mild compared to what else gets sold on eBay. Take a peek at this. Yup. No where does it say plated, 100 mills, etc. These are always getting sold as "WWII" gold 24k plate bars. These bars are new. Now ask yourself, should something like this be allowed on eBay? In reality, it shouldn't. As these bars are not marked that they are just plated, people will buy these, in order to scam people. These is really no different then selling counterfeit coins on eBay that' don't bear a "copy" stamp, eBay should really come up with new policies to ban the sale of these. But of course, as new rules get added, people will find more clever ways to sell more "grey area" stuff that dupes uneducated buyers. While we have little say in what eBay can do, we can all do our part and throw a little education out there, so people don't fall for this stuff.
"I believe it's silver... I believe it's silver... I believe it's silver..." Nope... it ain't silver no matter how hard I try to believe.:smile
Almost the same material that Golden Dollars are made of. But so far I have not seen "1 oz 999 NG" bars ... Christian
Cons like this exist everywhere - who would know that "Real Leather" is a proprietary name for a form of artificial Leather substitute? In my early days I was delighted to find a large bowl at a car-boot sale here in the UK marked "Nevada Silver" - I thought I had a real bargain until someone older and bolder pointed out it was just another name for a Silver free alloy.
At least this guy does a better job of disclosing what it in his bars than some sellers do. I've seen a few auctions where the seller buried the composition in a mess of fine print. I've even seen one where the seller included a link to view the "specifications" of the bar on an external site. ALWAYS steer clear of auctions that have content on external sites, because those can be modified without changing the auction. My favorite was the old Genuine® Diamonds scam. They weren't "Genuine Diamonds", they were "Genuine® Diamonds". The word "Genuine" was a registered trademark and didn't refer to the nature of the diamonds themselves. Of course when a person bought these, they didn't receive natural diamonds, they got manufactured diamonds. The people selling German Silver on FeeBay are total amateurs compared to the marketing people that came up with the Genuine® Diamonds scam.
