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I thought the coin bite was just to check that it left an indentation. How would you use it to differentiate gold from lead? They're both soft.

nchallak 1y ago
Lead tastes a bit sweet.
mattdeboard 1y ago
You can tell the difference bc if it's lead eventually you'll die
bee_rider 1y ago
I found a little discussion on the topic: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8810/is-biting-a-gold-coin-a-working-method-to-verify-its-authenticity https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8810/is-biting-... They found a paper which apparently (I didn’t dig into their sources) says: > concludes that the coin biting is most probably a cliche in literature and movies. > The manuscript points out that there are many references to coin biting form early 20th century but not from older (contemporary to the setting) sources e.g. […] They put a possible origin to the cliche to 19th century gold prospectors distinguishing pyrite from gold nuggets by biting. So, it may have been 19’th century authors speculating about to-them long past history, based on current events. The relative softness of different widely circulated alloys bounces around quite a bit over the ages, but the author only has to come up with something that is plausible to their audience, after all. Biting a coin is sort of trope of an expert at adventure, right? In some sense it is plausible enough that there’s some difference the property of widely circulated alloys, so whatever that difference is, the expert knows how it feels. Maybe the common fakes of the era are softer lead, maybe they are some harder silver alloy, but the expert pirate knows.
- rad_gruchalski 1y ago
  But my original write up makes fora good story ;) Apparently alchemists thought of gold to be a noble pure metal while lead was thought to be an immature version of gold that could be purified into the noble version of gold.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    Hey, I think it is plausible enough!
hnuser123456 1y ago
So that you can see the interior of the coin and ensure it's not lead painted over with gold.

nchallak 1y ago

Lead tastes a bit sweet.

mattdeboard 1y ago

You can tell the difference bc if it's lead eventually you'll die

bee_rider 1y ago

I found a little discussion on the topic: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8810/is-biting-a-gold-coin-a-working-method-to-verify-its-authenticity https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8810/is-biting-... They found a paper which apparently (I didn’t dig into their sources) says: > concludes that the coin biting is most probably a cliche in literature and movies. > The manuscript points out that there are many references to coin biting form early 20th century but not from older (contemporary to the setting) sources e.g. […] They put a possible origin to the cliche to 19th century gold prospectors distinguishing pyrite from gold nuggets by biting. So, it may have been 19’th century authors speculating about to-them long past history, based on current events. The relative softness of different widely circulated alloys bounces around quite a bit over the ages, but the author only has to come up with something that is plausible to their audience, after all. Biting a coin is sort of trope of an expert at adventure, right? In some sense it is plausible enough that there’s some difference the property of widely circulated alloys, so whatever that difference is, the expert knows how it feels. Maybe the common fakes of the era are softer lead, maybe they are some harder silver alloy, but the expert pirate knows.

rad_gruchalski 1y ago
But my original write up makes fora good story ;) Apparently alchemists thought of gold to be a noble pure metal while lead was thought to be an immature version of gold that could be purified into the noble version of gold.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  Hey, I think it is plausible enough!

hnuser123456 1y ago

So that you can see the interior of the coin and ensure it's not lead painted over with gold.