...then cut it in half to make sure it's not gold-plated tungsten.
Beat me to it. This is why I'd never buy a precious metal, especially gold. How can you ever be sure it's real?
Fairly simple XRF + thermal conductivity + resistivity tests will completely guarantee that a bar of gold is what it says on the face. For extra paranoia there's more complex ultrasonic testing.
If someone is desperate to sell it to you for bitcoin, it is probably real. Gold isn't doing too well at the moment.
If they don't care too much, it's probably fake.
Gold isn't doing well mostly due to manipulation from the people who derive power from fiat emission and control. Mostly the families that own the banks and the fed.
They will probably come for bitcoin soon but manipulation will be much more difficult. They could buy lots of coins creating a spike and then dumping everything recklessly and crashing it, but I am not sure of their success. Gold is much easier to manipulate and discourage.
Gold is safe, bitcoin isn't. Its amazing that 1 bitcoin can buy an ounce of gold, but no one can put a fair price estimate on Bitcoin. It's either hundreds of thousands or nothing.
Even the crazy Gold bubble looks like a blip next to Bitcoins rise! If bitcoin holders get a bit antsy about the price, they could do much worse than getting into Gold or Silver
