The Royal Canadian Mint says a phoney gold bar sold to a jeweller by an Ottawa bank may have looked like the real thing, but it was actually a counterfeit.

Spokesman Alex Reeves says the small gold wafer wasn't made or sold by the Mint, although it was made to look like the real thing.

RBC is investigating how the fake bullion came to be sold.

The jeweller who bought the bar told a news outlet that his goldsmith knew something was wrong when he tried to put the wafer through a mill and found it was much too hard and brittle to begold.

"We know that its purity is not four nines, its weight is not four nines," he said. "The packaging has errors on it, so we knew right away that there were several things wrong with it. It couldnot possibly come from the Royal Canadian Mint."

He said it's rare for such a counterfeit to turn up.

"This is not widespread; this is a very isolated case," Reeves said. "It didn't come from the Mint, it's not one of our bars. It imitates one of our bars, but that's the extent of itunfortunately."

It is up to the bank to investigate the problem, he said.

To read the complete article, see:
Ottawa bank sells counterfeit gold bar to jeweller(https://globalnews.ca/news/3833439/ottawa-bank-sells-counterfeit-gold-bar-jeweller/)

But despite the mint's claim that counterfeits are rare, a quick internet search shows such products abound.

For example, the online retailer Wish.com offers what it describes as a "Canadian Gold Bar 1 OZ .9999 Premium Gold" for a price of $13 plus shipping.

The bar shown also bears the stamp of the Royal Canadian Mint.

"It boils down to product knowledge," said veteran coin collector Sean Isaacs. "And the first line of defence is knowing what you're dealing with."

Calling it a "critical, frontline tool" for the bullion and coin dealer, Isaacs said he paid about $1,100 for his Sigma Metalytics precious metal verifier.

The verifier works by analyzing the conductivity of precious metals such as silver and gold.

Isaacs said a reliable verifier is something every bank dealing in precious metals should have on hand.

"The average teller at a bank I don't think has the training to recognize those [counterfeit] products, which is why, in my opinion, you either need a tool to allow you to do that, or theproduct knowledge to know what you're handling."

To read the complete article, see:
Fake gold not ours, mint says(http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/fake-gold-not-ours-mint-says-1.4380705)