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Fakes & FraudsShiny objects.

28th Jun 2018 13:28 UTCvictor rzonca

Found these online recently. They are mercury coated Lingams, a good luck piece, from India, said to bring fertility, good health and good luck. I'll say it again. Mercury coated Lingams. Metallic mercury mainly causes health effects when inhaled as a vapor where it can be absorbed through the lungs. Symptoms of prolonged and/or acute exposures include: tremors. emotional changes such as mood swings, irritability, nervousness and excessive shyness. Of the routes of exposure, inhalation is worst, followed by ingestion, and then skin exposure. This would be a skin exposure, but could be all three. Don't be attracted to shiny objects. I can't think of anything worse to be selling. Not my hand.

28th Jun 2018 13:51 UTCPaul Brandes 🌟 Manager

Do we know they are actually "mercury coated", or is it just a sales pitch?

28th Jun 2018 15:06 UTCvictor rzonca

That's what was stated in the add, Paul. I have no way to vouch for the veracity of the claim. I copied only the image but the author was enthusiastic about the claim. Pretty weak sales pitch, mercury coated anything, I would not buy. Maybe a nice cinnabar. A quick search revealed vibrant trade in mercury coated Lingams and amulets and I'm a bit surprised.

28th Jun 2018 17:14 UTCErin Delventhal Manager

I'm a bit curious about how one would get mercury to adhere to the surface of anything?

28th Jun 2018 17:21 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

I share Erin's suspicions.

One could coat the stone with graphite, then plate it with a metal which forms amalgams, such as gold or silver, then dip it in Hg to create the amalgam coat, but I doubt that they've gone to that much trouble, and even then it would be a mercury amalgam coating and not strictly speaking a "mercury" coating. Just some marketing ploy, I expect.

28th Jun 2018 18:34 UTCvictor rzonca

Interesting. I can only agree on the coating. The logic of a marketing ploy escapes me, can only appeal to the alchedemic.

28th Jun 2018 18:41 UTCScott Rider

It looks like yet another scam, albeit it is one where the scam that doesn't end in some tragedy (i.e. someone not actually getting mercury and thus poisoning from it). For some reason it reminded me of the ancient Chinese Emperor (actually the 1st Emporer) Qin Shi Huang, who ingested it thinking he'd be immortal.

Excerpt directly from Wiki: "The cause of Qin Shi Huang's death is still largely unknown, reportedly, he died from Chinese alchemical elixir poisoning due to ingesting mercury pills, made by his alchemists and court physicians, believing it to be an elixir of immortality."

Anyway, anyone actually selling mercury probably would get in a lot of trouble, at least in a developed country. Sending toxic stuff through the mail tends to anger postal services.. And, those stones are probably cheaply made w/silver spray paint. And I doubt they are actual Lingam stones anyway.

28th Jun 2018 18:42 UTCMichael Sommers

It's a mercury amalgam. Search "parad" for more info (if you're interested, or bored). Not that I'm advocating anything about it.

28th Jun 2018 18:44 UTCDoug Schonewald

Marketing ploys are designed to increase the value of an item that is otherwise insignificant monetarily, or to sell something that could not be sold otherwise.

These look suspiciously like they were cast. How heavy are they? Aluminum has that satiny look when cast. Aluminum paint also looks suspiciously like these. A dip in acetone might tell you a lot.

28th Jun 2018 18:54 UTCvictor rzonca

I didn't acquire any for testing.

4th Jul 2018 00:14 UTCJohn Oostenryk

First think I thought was ZINC!

Likely Easily done.

Easier to spray paint silver-LOL

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