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Italy 500 Lire — ping test & specs

The Italian 500 Lire "Caravelle" (1958–2001) is a circulating .835 silver coin. Its lower fineness and small 29.3 mm size give it a characteristic ring distinct from bullion coins.

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Opens the free tester with this coin preselected — audio never leaves your device.

Official specifications

Weight11 g
Diameter29.3 mm
Composition.835 silver

Source: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato (Italy). Coin Pinger checks measured weight and diameter against these values.

Expected resonance range

High confidence*
ModeExpected ringRecommended variance
c0d24.54–5.67 kHz±11.1%
c0d310.53–13.05 kHz±10.7%

A genuine Italy 500 Lire rings within these ranges at its c0d2/c0d3 vibration modes, fixed by its size and metal. The recommended variance is how far a genuine specimen's ring can sit from each center — built up in quadrature from real manufacturing tolerance and temperature (under 1%), phone-mic capture reproducibility (≈4%), an extra allowance on the fundamental for minting-asymmetry splitting, and a per-metal model-uncertainty term (largest for .9999 gold, whose modulus is least certain). This coin's band is widened further because circulated 90%-silver classics lose mass and edge crispness with wear, spreading their ring. The higher modes also carry a small thick-plate centre correction, since a real coin is not infinitely thin. The high-confidence tag reflects how well-established this metal's constants are: Computed from well-established silver elastic constants and cross-checked against same-size sibling coins. These are guidance bands, not exact values — see the methodology for the exact formula, or calibrate your own coin in the app for a specimen-exact reference and tighten each peak per coin.

* These are computed guidance ranges. Certain your Italy 500 Lire is genuine but it won't match? Send us its ring — we'll dig in and improve the reference.

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How to ping test a Italy 500 Lire

  1. Hold — grip the coin by its center (a nodal point) in a coin ping-test holder so the rim rings freely; a fingertip at the center is a last resort.
  2. Tap — strike the edge with a striker near the microphone.
  3. Read the verdict — MATCH or NO MATCH against the peaks above, plus weight and size checks.
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The physics of the Italy 500 Lire ping

Those 2 peaks aren't random. When you strike the coin it flexes as a free disc in fixed patterns called vibration modes — 0 nodal circles with 2 and 3 nodal diameters, written c0d2 / c0d3. Each pattern rings at one frequency.

Where those frequencies land is set by the coin's geometry and metal. For a thin disc, frequency ∝ (thickness ÷ diameter²) × √(stiffness ÷ density). This Italy 500 Lire is 29.3 mm across in .835 silver, which puts its fundamental (c0d2) near 5105 Hz.

A perfect disc's modes sit near 1 : 2.3; this coin measures 1 : 2.31. That fixed spacing is the fingerprint of a genuine struck disc — Coin Pinger rejects taps that don't fit it (keys, glass, a coin lying on a hard surface).

And it's why a fake can't hide: change the metal and √(E/ρ) changes, so every mode moves. Struck in lead or a plated base metal instead, the ring would land far lower and die out with a dull, short thud — its c0d2 would land near ≈2250 Hz instead of 5105 Hz. Density can fool a scale; the ring can't be faked without the right metal.

We publish this as a High confidence reference. Computed from well-established silver elastic constants and cross-checked against same-size sibling coins.

Free-plate modes per A. W. Leissa, Vibration of Plates, NASA SP-160 (1969, public domain). See how we measure them →
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