Next the conductivity tests!
thermal or electric conductivity?
Electrical. You probably could do it with thermal, though.
which of these 2 is harder to fake (by using impure silver or using core of different material(s)).
Honestly, no clue. Impure silver would conduct both heat and electricity differently, and I'm pretty sure the the lead core/lighter alloy wrapping would throw them off, too... but I'm uncertain in exactly what way.
I'd love to have some fake silver coins. Anyone have any?
All my silver is genuine. Right,
ShireSilver?
Please note that the shape of an object can affect the conductivity, so a conductivity test isn't a good way to test for purity. This is one of the reasons why Shire Silver has never implemented a method of directly accessing the metal through the plastic. We considered it when we were creating our prototypes, putting holes at each end of the embedded wire to allow probes to be used. For more on this, you might start with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_conductor and particularly note sections like
The resistance of a given conductor depends primarily on two factors: What material it is made of, and its shape. For a given material, the resistance is inversely proportional to the cross-sectional area; for example, a thick copper wire has lower resistance than an otherwise-identical thin copper wire. Also, for a given material, the resistance is proportional to the length; for example, a long copper wire has higher resistance than an otherwise-identical short copper wire.
and
This formula is not exact: It assumes the current density is totally uniform in the conductor, which is not always true in practical situations. However, this formula still provides a good approximation for long thin conductors such as wires.
This last one indicates that a conductivity test would likely be more accurate for Shire Silver than traditional bullion, but it would still not be accurate enough and adding the probe access points would add significant cost to the card production.
And yes, we get our silver and gold from a well known jewelry supply company who has been in the business for a long time. We also try to make our cards contain at least as much metal as they say they have plus a small amount to help account for our production variance. For example, a half gram silver card will have 0.52 +/- 0.02 grams of .999 fine silver.
I suppose I should get around to making a Shire Silver specific thread so I can post stuff like the news that our recent site upgrade has temporarily cut off the ability to accept bitcoins in the shopping cart, which we're trying to fix.
And people following this thread might find this page interesting:
https://shiresilver.com/counterfeiting