A man was being held at the Porter County Jail after Portage Police said that he sold brass bars disguised as silver bullion to area jewelers.

Thomas G. Damon, 23, with a listed address of 591 Valley Drive, has been charged with one count of theft and one of false informing.

Portage PD began an investigation of Damon on Dec. 29 after two jewelers reported separately that a man bearing a driver’s license identifying him as Thomas Damon had sold them multiple bars of the fraudulent silver.

The first jeweler purchased 25 bars from Damon on Dec. 18 for a total of $425 and then 25 more bars on Dec. 22 for an additional $400, police said; the second bought 11 of the bars on Dec. 11 and 27 more on Dec. 15, when the going price of silver was around $17 per Troy ounce.

“Each bar was in a plastic case” and each had “an emblem of a hammer with the wording ‘ONE OUNCE TROY .999 FINE SILVER PAN AMERICAN SILVER CORP NORTHWEST TERRITORIAL MINT,’” police said.

The scam was only discovered after a fellow jeweler, who’d also bought a quantity of bars from Damon, sent his purchase to a refiner. There the bars’ brass core was detected, with an assay revealing the total silver content of any given bar to be 2.5 percent, police said.

Although one of the jewelers admitted being unable “to see any difference between the fake and real bars,” police said, a pawn-store clerk in Lake Station, using a scanner, was able to determine them to be counterfeit.

As all three jewelers subsequently learned, brass bars disguised as silver bullion, apparently stamped with genuine markings and hallmarks, are available for sale on the Internet for around $2.30 each.

Damon, for his part, told at least some of the jewelers that his late grandfather had left him the silver bars as an inheritance, police said.

Since Damon’s arrest, two more jewelers have reported buying the fake bars, police said: 15 of them, in one case, for $170; and 40 of them, in the other, for $640.

Several of the jewelers did advise police that, prior to learning that the bars were fake, they’d sold all or some of them and were currently working on getting them back and refunding the customers their money.

According to the probable cause affidavit filed by Portage PD, Damon was charged with theft, for exerting unauthorized control of the $825 which one of jewelers paid him for the fake bars; and with false informing, for telling the investigating officer that “he didn’t know the silver bars he sold were fake,” then admitting “that he lied, saying he was scared.”

Bond was set for Damon at $8,500 cash or surety.