Counterfeit coins and disreputable dealers...

[YumaMarc]

I'm not an avid coin collector, but I do buy and collect a lot of things of historical interest, including known contemporary counterfeit coins and banknotes. I have been reading and seeing news reports of a flood of Chinese-made "replicas" entering the world market. Some of these are evidently from very well-made dies on hydraulic presses, even to the point of using .900 silver planchets if the coins have great collector appeal. Supposedly a lot of these are being offered on eBay and other auction sites, as well as other outlets. I'm almost paranoid to buy what I would hope is a "real" coin, especially if it is quite costly.

I can't blame all my fears on the Chinese as counterfeiting has been going on since there were coins, and auction dealers will sell anything that will bring a buck. On eBay I recently bid on a Honduran 1833 Provisional 2 Real coin, Tegucigalpa mint. I know enough about this mintage to immediately recognize it as a counterfeit from the times, but it was of interest to me for that very reason. The auction ended, and I was the only bidder so I got the coin dirt cheap. Most serious coin collectors will not bid on counterfeits, so it was my gain.

My concern about the Honduran coin is that the seller surely did some research in order to know what the the coin is worth, and in the process it would be nearly impossible not to find out about that date and issue. Some sellers may be truly ignorant of their wares, but I believe many counterfeits are sold with their full knowledge and are passed off to unwary would-be collectors as legitimate. A lot of the modern fakes are so well made and sometimes "antiqued" as to be nearly impossible to discern from actual government mintage.

I don't know what is the solution to this dilemma, if there is one at all. At this moment I'm a bit reluctant to invest a good sum of money in something that I may highly regret later. Can anyone suggest to casual collectors how they may protect themselves from this possibility?

 

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[huntsman53]

Other than bombing the Shanghai Factories where most of the Counterfeits are produced, I would say to invest in the best reference books on detecting Counterfeits. There may be some Classes offered on Counterfeit Detection as well and if so, try to sign up for some and learn all you can. Other than that, it takes experience and knowledge of what to look for.

 

[cudamark]

It's hard to be 100% sure something is genuine. Even experienced professionals can get fooled from time to time. There are a few ways to improve your odds however. Buying online is always a gamble, but, buying a slabbed coin with a way to research it with the grading company is a good start. Buying in person, having a good relationship with a local coin dealer you can trust will stand behind their product, is another way. One way I've used at times, is at a major coin show. You find a coin to buy, get a money back guarantee that it's real from the seller, and then go around and get a bid on it from other dealers. If it's genuine, you'll get an offer to buy. If not, they will tell you it doesn't look right, or that it's for sure a counterfeit. Some shows will even have an expert grading service on site that will render an opinion.

 

[CoinHELP!]

The only way to discern the best fakes is by learning their variety characteristics of the series you're collecting. For example, for Morgan Dollars learn know how to look up their VAM, they're studied heavily and can be researched on sites like vamworld.com or the 1909 S VDB Lincoln Cent the mint mark will have a small die mark in the upper part of the S mint mark and there's only a handful of mint mark positions.

So it is important to know the coin you're collecting and most of this is available online and you can even send me a private PM with images. I get fakes in our shop all the time so it is a problem.

 

[Plumbata]

I'd suggest moving past the dealers and establishing direct relationships with Honduran metal-detectorists and artifact hunters (or detectorists from the countries with artifacts you collect), because these are the people the dealers get their authentic merchandise from before the dishonest dealers mix known fakes with the genuine items they offer for sale. I'm not sure how much effort and money you want to invest, but if you build a network of trusted hunters to buy from that also trust you and bring their finds to you first, you could possibly begin selling unwanted items yourself to help generate money for special items you do want. Becoming a dealer yourself also helps build contacts with collectors who may also have items you want in their collections that you would otherwise never have access to or know about.

I collect ancient European antiquities and find that it is best to build relationships with the artifact hunters themselves because you get the best provenance information and also the items cost much less than from established dealers that have a large repeat customer base. For example, just this morning I bought 2 Ancient Roman stone Ballista catapult balls from the 2nd century AD for about 50 bucks each from the person in Spain who found them. If they were sold by me or by established dealers they would sell for over 300 each. You say you are a casual collector now, that is how we all begin, but I say it is much more rewarding to be serious collector!

 

[Nitric]

Even dealers are constantly fighting this battle and trying to learn what the next fake is. No one person can know all of them. Or detect all of them.

I was friends with a dealer for years and took over after he passed for a couple of years. I had to feel the same as you when buying from customers. People will intentionally try to fool dealers too! I had a guy that tried about every other month. Luckily, I was warned ahead of time, because his stuff looked legit. I would not buy anything from him, even the real stuff.

The only way to fight it is to try to learn as much as you can. They counterfeit everything and have been doing it for years!! Some are actually worth money because the old counterfeits took real skill and it's an art! I can appreciate that too.

 

[YumaMarc]

Thank very much to all for your kind replies. You've given me some very good information.

 

[unclemac]

i buy a lot...I mean A LOT of coins on EBAY and off the internet. I have 5 in depth collections of specific countries and maybe a dozen or so minor collections of things that interest me. Some of the rules i follow are....NEVER buy a coin located in China or Eastern Europe. RESEARCH your high value coins on the internet, in books and web discussions BEFORE you buy. KNOW your area focus. ONLY buy from EBAY sellers that have GREAT feedback, look at what they have sold recently, and be sure that they have hundreds of transactions....ALSO look at what else they have for sale. Try to find dealers that specialize in the area or era that you are looking at. Finally, look outside of EBAY...if you are collecting Canada for instance, look for coin shop web sites in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, where ever....and check out reputable auction sites like Heritage or Torex.

I recently bought a high value coin from China AS a reproduction for next to nothing (there are some very honest repro guys out there) just so i COULD compare it to the real deal....WOW is all I can say, if you don't know what you are looking for, the fakes can be sophisticated indeed.

 

[Nitric]

i buy a lot...I mean A LOT of coins on EBAY and off the internet. I have 5 in depth collections of specific countries and maybe a dozen or so minor collections of things that interest me. Some of the rules i follow are....NEVER buy a coin located in China or Eastern Europe. RESEARCH your high value coins on the internet, in books and web discussions BEFORE you buy. KNOW your area focus. ONLY buy from EBAY sellers that have GREAT feedback, look at what they have sold recently, and be sure that they have hundreds of transactions....ALSO look at what else they have for sale. Try to find dealers that specialize in the area or era that you are looking at. Finally, look outside of EBAY...if you are collecting Canada for instance, look for coin shop web sites in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, where ever....and check out reputable auction sites like Heritage or Torex.

I recently bought a high value coin from China AS a reproduction for next to nothing (there are some very honest repro guys out there) just so i COULD compare it to the real deal....WOW is all I can say, if you don't know what you are looking for, the fakes can be sophisticated indeed.

I have a coin(seated dime) that's on here in a thread somewhere that has fooled good dealers that have been in business for years. I know it's fake, I did question it though and a I wanted it to be real. Huntsman knew it was a fake. Even then,after explaining why it was fake. I got a couple PM's at that time of guys still thinking it was real and saying that I should have it checked. This is an altered coin, the info is on the net(but have to dig a little to find it), but sometimes even then people want the stuff to be real. They make some very good fakes or altered coins out there!!!

 

[unclemac]

yeah, those alter ones are highly bogus!

 

[Plumbata]

It is highly unlikely to be relevant to New World coins and artifacts, but for ancient European artifacts/coins Eastern and Southern Europe are go-to sources. Some of the best scores in my life have come from low or 0-feedback sellers in the Balkans who don't know English and do a horrible job of properly advertising or describing their metal-detected items. Granted, many if not most artifacts and many coins are outright fakes or mis-identified for profit (like all the "Crucifixion nails" sold for exorbitant amounts to gullible Christians that are merely building spikes from ancient wood structures) so it is the responsibility of the buyer to know their stuff and buy what they see in the pictures, not what the title or description states.

Regarding "reputable" dealers, some of the most malevolent swindlers on earth are located in the UK, with thousands of feedbacks and a 100% rating, and aside from low-value ancient junk peppered in to assist in their deception everything of note is modern fake crap with artificial patination, manufactured in workshops in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Serbia, Spain, Cyprus, etc. You will literally see the precise items being sold honestly as reproductions for 15-30 dollars by the makers in Bulgaria get listed as authentic ancient pieces by hordes of UK criminals, which then sell for gobs of money to an endless supply of collectors with more dollars than sense.

I'd be much more upset about this if I didn't cynically recognize the fact that for every moron competing with other morons to spend hundreds or thousands on modern fakes, there is that much less competition for the rare genuine items. It sucks that some people have spent 10s of thousands on glorified scrap metal, but what can ya do when eBay absolutely refuses to address the problem?

 

[unclemac]

boy howdy that's true....if you question an EBAY listing sometime YOU are the one that gets dinged.

 

[A2coins]

Good advice I buy the Eagle dollar coins for investment only 22 dollars some proof ect I dont think I would buy an expensive coin on ebay, Great post