[Dylan16807]

If you get the wrong brand of croissants you can still eat them safely. That's what's different, so different the analogy falls apart.

> This isn't even a new or unique thing when it comes to metals. Forged or missing bar codes/certificates are often used to smuggle very much real gold bars that were either stolen, sourced from a country that blocks trading gold with the destination, or have some other reason to be passed under the radar. That there's no proper trail to trace their origin doesn't somehow mean that it's not feasible to determine whether they are actually gold (and what grade of gold they are) or counterfeit bars made from other metals.

It's not new or unique, but it's especially hard or impossible to test these parts without melting everything down and completely remaking them.