One of the quirks of alternative investing is that you end up researching some pretty strange things. For example, I recently embarked on a silver bullion buying spree. But that isn’t the unusual part of my story. The weird part is what I stumbled upon when I looked for a simple and reliable silver counterfeit detection method. I discovered a device called the CCT silver slide.
What is a CCT silver slide?
Simply put, a CCT silver slide is a quick and easy way to test silver bars and coins for fakes or counterfeits. The bullion market has been hit by an absolute flood of counterfeit Chinese silver coins and bars over the past decade. The worst part of this plague is that China’s manufacturing prowess has allowed it to make increasingly sophisticated fakes, some of which are impossible to distinguish from genuine pieces by looks alone.
Almost every bullion piece you can imagine has been imitated by the Chinese, including very popular products such as American silver eagles, Australian Perth Mint products and Sunshine Minting silver bars. So having an effective way to weed out counterfeit silver is absolutely vital for the precious metal stacker.
How does a CCT silver slide work?
The device works on the twin principals of diamagnetism and electrical conductivity. These create an effect known as the eddy current brake. If you place a very strong magnet on an inclined silver surface, it will only slide down it very slowly. Likewise, a silver coin placed on a large, inclined magnet will also slide quite slowly. Most other metals will not behave this way, even if they are plated with a layer of pure silver. Ferrous metals will stick to the magnet while cupro-nickel, brass and zinc alloys will descend quickly, with little or no hesitation.
This video gives a good demonstration of a CCT silver slide in action:
My adventures in buying a CCT silver slide
My story begins a few months ago when I began expanding my silver holdings. Even though I was buying from reputable dealers, I soon realized that it would be wise to spend some money on diagnostic equipment. Once I discovered the simplicity and usefulness of a CCT silver slide, I knew I had to have one.
Now this is where things got interesting. CCT is an acronym that stands for “Cyber Curtain Twitcher”, a pseudonym for a gentleman silver stacker who resides in the United Kingdom. This colorful man has an unusual YouTube channel where he and an assistant torture and destroy counterfeit coins in a myriad of gruesome ways. I found his quirky brand of humor to be quite entertaining.
CCT is the personal creator of each and every one of his eponymous silver slides. Yes, there are other silver slides currently on the market. But to the best of my knowledge, Cyber Curtain Twitcher was the very first person to conceive of the silver slide idea as a simple, non-destructive testing method to distinguish fake silver coins from genuine ones. He also constructs his slides to much higher standards than his competitors (which is obvious if you read through the build quality section further down in this article).
I wanted the best of the best – an original CCT silver slide.
2025 Update
CCT now offers his eponymous silver slides for sale directly via eBay! I have a link to his products towards the bottom on this article. This supersedes the section of the article I wrote below, but I’ve left it in for historical accuracy.
However, CCT has no dedicated website or formal sales platform for his product. In addition, there was only one way to contact the man – through the comments section of his YouTube channel. When I did, he informed me that the U.S. distribution of his slides is exclusively handled by an associate named “Mr. Vegiita” (another pseudonym, of course).
At this point, things began feeling a little cloak and dagger.
Apparently the only way to get in touch with Mr. Vegiita is also through his YouTube channel comments. When I contacted him this way, Mr. Vegiita informed me that as soon as he received a slide shipment from CCT, he would post a video advertising them for sale. I just needed to post my comment requesting a slide below one of those videos.
Then the waiting game began.
About a week later, Mr. Vegiita finally uploaded a video stating that some slides were available. Unfortunately, my YouTube notification didn’t get pushed through, so I was a bit slow in discovering this. I rushed to Mr. Vegiita’s YouTube channel and left my comment, only to discover that I was too late! All of the slides had been sold out in the 24 hours since he had posted the video.
But I would not be denied.
Mr. Vegiita offered to put me on a waiting list – a proposal that I readily agreed to. After waiting a couple more weeks, I received a notification letting me know he had just gotten a few more silver slides in stock in my choice of oak, utile or idigbo hardwood at $80 each on a first come, first served basis. I sent him the money via PayPal before I even found out if my preferred wood was still available in the desperate hope that shoving the cash into his hands (shut up and take my money!) would obligate him to deliver me something.
Luckily, the utile wood version I wanted was still up for grabs! Utile, otherwise known as Sipo Mahogany, is an African tropical hardwood exported primarily from Cameroon, Ghana and Congo. Utile is a beautiful, dark reddish-brown color with a pronounced grain pattern that looks a lot like Honduran Mahogany. This is because Sipo Mahogany is actually a distant relative of the Swietenia (true mahogany) genus.
Mr. Vegiita was a man of his word and promptly mailed my slide, which I received just a few days later.
I had finally got hold of an elusive CCT silver slide! And it was everything I dreamed it would be. But that isn’t surprising considering the attention to detail that Cyber Curtain Twitcher puts into every slide.
CCT silver slide build quality
CCT handcrafts his silver slides from a variety of fine temperate and tropical hardwoods in his UK workshop. The slide portion is constructed from a series of ultra-high strength rare earth magnets laid in parallel.
These N52 neodymium magnets are the most powerful commercially available magnets in the world. In fact, they are so powerful that people with pacemakers are advised to handle the CCT silver slide (or any other product that contains rare earth magnets) with care, because its magnetic field could potentially disrupt an implanted cardiac device.
CCT then adds a soft felt layer over the magnets so that your bullion won’t get scratched as it slides down the ramp. He finishes the wood frame with a durable, yet attractive 5-coat melamine lacquer finish. Finally, he laser engraves a logo on the back that reads “CCT Silver Slide” to brand it as one of his handmade originals.
CCT Silver Slides for Sale on eBay
(This is an affiliate link for which I may be compensated)
The limitations of a CCT silver slide
Of course, no single precious metal counterfeit detection method is foolproof. And the CCT silver slide is no exception to this rule. A silver-plated slug of pure copper (which is also diamagnetic and highly conductive) will slide down a rare earth magnet ramp in much the same way as a real silver coin. Pure gold will also behave like pure silver, although this is generally a non-issue because no one would bother to counterfeit a low-value silver coin by silver plating a much more expensive gold coin.
A CCT silver slide also can’t readily distinguish between silver coins of different finenesses. Although a coin or bar of lower silver content should traverse the slide almost imperceptibly faster than a higher purity one, you would need a stopwatch to have any hope of telling the difference. In effect, a 50% or 80% silver coin will behave very similarly to a 90% or 99.9% silver coin (especially if the alloying metal is copper).
In addition, a silver coin struck in very high relief will slide down the ramp faster than expected because there is less surface area in direct contact with the magnets. Therefore the eddy current braking effect does not have an opportunity to fully engage.
And while a CCT silver slide is the perfect size for testing fractional silver and 1 troy ounce coins and bars, it won’t work well on larger silver bullion. Yes, it can accommodate 2 troy ounce bars and rounds, but once you get much larger than that you are better off using a small, button-shaped rare earth magnet directly on the test item’s surface.
Because of these (admittedly minor) drawbacks I advise every silver stacker to use at least two different counterfeit detection methods when buying silver bullion. The ping test, weight test, density test and acid test are all viable alternatives. A CCT silver slide combined with one of these other, complementary tests will eliminate practically every fake silver coin or bar that you might encounter.
On the whole, I would highly recommend an original CCT silver slide (or, barring that, a small rare earth magnet) to anyone interested in purchasing silver bullion. CCT – that mysterious silver stacker from the United Kingdom – makes a great product at a great price point. The money you save avoiding fake silver is well worth the cost.
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