Is there anything we can do?

I typically buy from AND sell to people I know and trust. I am not sure our government has the resources to stop the Chinese fakes, but maybe the NSA has been monitoring it for us.

 

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Paranoia may destroy ya, if the Secret Service doesn't - don'tcha know they have more important matters to attend to - like chasing down prostitutes in Bogota Colombia to entertain themselves with.

 

There is already a counterfeit $100 bill that even the treasury department has difficulty in identifying. It's called a Super Note and its the direct result of selling surplus printing presses to foreign countries.

What can we do?

Educate ourselves and learn the differences between authentic and counterfeit. When in doubt, get the opinion of a professional and by all means, never, ever spend serious money on a coin or bill, slabbed or not slabbed, until you are 110% certain of its authenticity.

 

I get what all of you are saying. It's good information and I appreciate it as I'm sure others do. My point was that this kind of thing deters new collectors. There so much more "bad press" about fakes that it probably scares folks off. Collectors who are already established are probably OK. I've got a lot to learn, but if/when I decide to branch out to other coins, you can bet I'll use due diligence to make sure I'm getting what I think I'm paying for. I tend to think that these kinds of things repels collectors - it sure won't attract them.

 

To augment this answer, a trusted dealer would be one who would refund you your purchase price if the coin that you purchased was proven to be counterfeit.

Coin Dealers are in this business to make money and the one thing they should value the most is their reputation. Those that do are the Trusted Ones, those that don't fall into the other category.

 

We agree. Any fakes in a collectible hobby are bad news. But, neaarly collecible field has them. If you don't think so, you are kidding yourself. The only real defense is education, educating yourself about the items, dealers, etc.

 

Sorry Tim but calling the Secret Service won't do any good unless the seller is physically located in the US. Our laws don't apply in China and what they are doing is not illegal there. Even shipping them to the US isn't illegal for them, the crime is committed by the person in the US that orders them an how are they going to know who placed an order? (Ask the NSA?) About the only way it could be cracked down on would be the customs bureau. Have them confiscate any and all unmarked copies that enter the country.

But there are a couple of problems with that. This means that every package that comes into the country, either by freight or by mail, will have to be opened and inspected and if the customs inspector thinks they might be fakes they are confiscated. Problem, how many customs inspectors are qualified to be able to identify fakes from real coins for all of the different coins that have been made in the last 2700 years. Probably not many. So what do they do? They could either just let everything through, which is no better than what we have now, or they could err on the side of caution and confiscate anything they don't recognize. So they confiscate almost everything. Can you imagine what it will do to the mail when every package from outside the country has to be opened and inspected? Or when most of the coins purchased from outside the country are confiscated because they MIGHT be fake? Oh don't worry you can appeal, go to court, prove they are real and get them back. Should only take a couple years.

I'm not sure how you could fix this problem. You really need to crack down on those people ordering them and bringing them in (but how do you find them), and/or on those people reselling them in this country. (Now you have to prove that they knew they were fake.) Going after the resellers would probably be the best thing. Find someone selling a fake, confiscate ALL of their coins until you can determine which are real and which are fake. If most or all of them are fake you have pretty good evidence that they are knowingly selling fakes. It would also put the fear into those "shady" dealers that sell both real and fakes and claim ignorance. The problem is some legitimate dealers could get shut down and put out of business just because a fake gets past them.

I hate to say it but we might have to go like Canada did, repeal the HPA, and simply make all fakes and/or copies illegal whether they are marked or not.

 

U.S. government loves that China is sending lots of fake gold and silver to USA, that makes gold and silver less attractive to investors. That is a plus for them because precious metals are a threat to dollar hegemony.

Website alibaba openly sells counterfeit US mint products and has been up for a long time. U.S. government could call Chinese government and have them shut down, but they don't because of what I said above.

 

Excellent post. Well said.

 

This one has to go down in the [FONT=&amp]"Best of Detecto"[/FONT].

How funny that a guy who doesn't own much of anything is worried that the Chinese will buy all of "us" out. As long as your parents don't sell the house, or until the Chinese corner the market on 20 year-old Tempos, you're probably safe and needn’t worry much about deportation.

 

I'll speak from experience and completely agree on this one. Read the fine print on their site or ad. Phrases like " we use our own grading standards" and any grade with catchy adjectives like "nice" or premium" should raise a flag.

 

"There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale." (Network 1976)

[video=youtube;wqrY2F_Xz3s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqrY2F_Xz3s[/video]

 

You know they were saying the same thing about the Japanese about 20 years ago. They were buying up all kinds of real estate, buildings, companies etc and people were complaining about how we were selling ourselves out to the Japanese! Then their stock market took a slide and suddenly they needed cash to shore up their market positions so they started trying to sell. Well they needed cash NOW and it takes time to liquidate property. So while they tried to sell their market kept slipping. They got desperate and started dumping for whatever they could get quickly and it turned into a fire sale. They got back pennies on the dollar. Right now China has purchased a lot here, but now their economy is starting to turn soft. If it continues we may see another fire sale.