Chinese Counterfeiter Producing High Quality Fakes

Well, he did state it was "aliexpress.com", not eBay. Take a peek at some of the slabbed Morgans on that site... then you may change your mind about being "afraid".

Here, let me do it for you:

http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=morgan+silver+dollar&catId=0

 

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First off, the 250,000 is over about 4 years. I normally spend about 1 hour a day and report 100+. So maybe it is only 200,000. I have not kept track that closely.
Secondly, I have never reported them one at a time. FWIW, maybe 1/3 of them I don't even look at the listing. When someone enters 400 coins similarly (as happened that day) and makes the same error on the first 5 listings I see and several other listings randomly selected, they all get reported. My guess is that I reported those 400 in less than 30 minutes. There is a hole bunch of copy and paste. I did a 100 listing page at a time. If you copy that to notepad, all of the pictures go away.

 

You should apply for a job.

Personally, I look on eBay for stuff to buy, not complain about.

 

If they are this easy to spot, what's there to be afraid of?

 

I'm glad I was able to be of assistance. Now perhaps folks will actually look up instead of run around screaming "The Sky is falling! The Sky is falling!"

 

I have a question, and it may seem really stupid.....but, here goes......

Supposing the Chinese counterfeiters are now using 90% silver blanks now (because the other metals are being detected as fake) and stamp out replicas of Morgans, sell them on eBay for somewhat big bucks, and on aliexpress.com for about 10X and offer free shipping, where the buyer can simply go turn the morgans in for 27X (with spot around 40) to a dealer as junk silver, what's stopping them? It gives an outlet for the Chinese entrepreneur to make money on the silver they have available, and to possibly give a buyer here or elsewhere the opportunity to sell that silver at a greater price than they paid.


Or are the Chinese NOT using 90% silver blanks, or are they using inferior silver?


So the question is: Are the blanks that Chinese replica Morgans using allowing people to sell them in the US not only as a real coin (to some people) but also at melt prices to make money that way?

 

When eBay started enforcing their unpublished rules, I figure I could at least level the playing field. See http://www.cointalk.com/t28528/. Their latest kick is that you cannot say a coin is graded or certified unless it is by their authorized TPG's. I dare anyone to find that rule published. And, BTW, a real big chunk of those were the Chinese counterfeiters. They were using stock photos. OOPS!!

 

Hey, I'm all for the Chinese doing what they do. Remember, they are our friends, and I've bought hundreds of unmarked replicas to fill the "holes" in my albums. I hope they improve the quality of their replicas to be honest with you (though I have noted considerable improvement over the years). The sky is definitely "not falling", and I support efforts to insure the continued influx of these low quality "hole fillers". I guess I got caught up in all the hype here on CT about the "unmarked replica problem", which is apparently not a problem at all.

 

What is being offered by the Chinese is not Silver. Silver is $30 an ounce in China just like it is here and the rest of the World.

IF, the Chinese were selling 90% Silver Morgan replica coins at $2.50 tp $15.00, they'd go out of business very quickly as the coins would still be worth what a 90% Silver coin was worth. (.9 of an ounce of Silver.)

IF folks are buying these pot metal coins and selling them as 90% silver then it's a problem created by the original buyer of the piece, not the seller UNLESS the seller states that it's 90% Silver.

Again, it's not the Chinese that are the problem, it's the buyers that buy their products with the specific intent of reselling them as "original" coins.

The term "counterfeiter" is bandied about quite frequently but a counterfeiter is one that produces a product with the intent to deceive or defraud. From what I've seen, most of the Chinese sellers accurately list their products as "replicas" which IMO is not intended to defraud.

 

100% correct. Again, I was caught up in the hype. Replicas (even unmarked) are NOT counterfeits. I want to publicly apologize to the "j-man" for calling him a counterfeiter.

 

I glanced at the web site referenced earlier, and saw several "genuine" Morgan dollars that were supposed to be 99.9% pure silver. I kind of doubt that claim - especially after looking at the pictures.

Ebay, on the other hand, has numerous listings for replica 90% silver dollars. One example is http://www.ebay.com/itm/copy-1881-c...43?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item4aaccb6fa3

Since these are (currently) being sold for $40 and the silver content of a Morgan dollar is $24, they are getting a nice profit.

 

Extremely nice since they aren't silver but simply replica's OF a 90% Silver Dollar.

 

You can't really go by that. Many of the pictures are of genuine coins, just that they are stock photos and not representative of the coin you would actually get if purchasing it.

 

That rule is published in the eBay help pages and has been for some time: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/currstamps.html#certified

The allowed TGP's are also listed on the general list of grading companies for specific types of items here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/authentication.html

 

You might sing a different tune after reading this-- Susan Headley wrote about an experiment in which Chinese counterfeits only had a 50% detection rate among FUN dealers

http://www.cointalk.com/t46943/

 

Hunh - you may be right.

That wasn't the way I read it but, after re-reading it, you may be right.

I asked the seller. We shall see.

edited for clarity

 

I'm not surprised. It often takes a specialist to identify a counterfeit of any particular type of coin. Although a dealer may be very knowledgeable in some types of coins, you cannot expect the same with coins they may have limited experience with. Yes, some people will be generally knowledgeable in counterfeit detection, but that is a specialty in its own right.

 

All the more reason to put them out of business. they live in china their economy is booming let them find a real job, not counterfeiting.

 

Question for ya, Turbo... what do you do with all these counterfeits?