Tibetan silver ingot: genuine or clever fake?

[fatso]

The above ingot, allegedly tibetan in origin, fell into my possession some years ago before general opening to trade by China. It seems to have an Emperors fading seal and some bold chinese hieroglyphics to the front.
The ugly stain visible is from my surface muriatic acid test: which did show it to be silver, incidentally.
Having learned in this Forum not to pay much attention to acid testing I have let the bar lie about, assuming it to be a fake. However a fountain of wisdom swelled up my brains this morning. I have decided to test the bar by hydrostatic method and since the total weight is 853 Gm I could do it with some approximation only, accuracy down to 1 Gm only. I thought that this accuracy would be good enough to tell whether it is a fake or a genuine treasure filched from tibetan monks by some Indiana Jones with red star in his cap. Well the weight loss in my test bucket of water while perfectly afloat was some 79 Gm=79 cubic cm of water notionally expelled. Divide original 853 Gm of suspect silver by its 79 cm3 volume and Voila! Spec.Gravity of 10.79 obtaines. This is better then the book value for the pure silver(10.49 or so). Should I hack at the precious ingot now in search for the lead inside or leave it alone, believing it a genuine tibetan treasure?

[admin]

Glad you've accepted the inadequacies of acid testing. As for the ingot, probably best to either accept it for what it may or may not be, if that's not possible, pass it on, unscathed, to someone else.

Regards, Tom

[salmoned]

fatso, you must describe your testing technique in detail for us to be able to determine the quality of the results. The seemingly high density may be within the range of accuracy for your method/instrumentation.

Also, it's possible the bar may be pure silver and yet still be a fake if it's purported to have some historical significance beyond its composition. It all depends upon your parameters.

[fatso]

Well Sir, I feel like Galileo Galilei about to describe his famous experiment: he climbed a church tower from which he threw the cannon ball and a wooden ball, both simulatenously. He asked the boy to observe, which of the balls does hit the ground first. They both did at the same time, actually.

My technique boasts of the same precision: electronic scales up to 5 Kg, presision+/- 1 Gm. The bucket of water, cradle to sit the silver bar on, made from lamp shade wire skeleton, thread and a sturdy prong to suspend the weight on just so much so to allow it to float freely. Some box heavy enough to pin this contraption to the surface of the scales. The object of the exercise: to prove that the bar is made of silver. This I believe I have achieved, to my great surprise.

Whether or not the bar is a genuine ancient tibetan treasure trove part of, would be another matter. It has the nice patination and the hallmarks, double of the same kind but I have bothered to record the single one only, have been showing signs of wear and tear due to shuffling the ingot along the pile of others of the similar kind. It could be all skillfully forged, of course, for all I know.

[salmoned]

Sounds good. My problem was with the word 'float'. Obviously, the bar floats neither in air nor water, but rather sinks or, as in this particular case, simply hangs or is suspended.

[kerangoumar]

are you working from the assumption that it is pure silver?