Not sure if this has been posted or not. Anyway, describing the exact problems with this "slab" may (or may not) be beneficial to the counterfeiters. This is the reason that eBay's self-appointed overseer "group" of all coins (that may or may not be fake) changed their membership policy from public to private. Yep, the Coin Forgery eBay (CFe) group only allows members that pass their stringent requirements, concealing their knowledge from those who need it most. Hmmm... I wonder... http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis...e&ArticleId=27042&et_mid=629181&rid=238121306
Great article!! I hope one day someone finds a way to stop all these counterfeit coins from coming into the market. I know it's wishful thinking but so sad that this happens!! Hopefully in the next 2 or 3 years I can make it over to Colorado Springs to hone my grading skills.
"While a discussion about the quality and manufacture of the outer plastic case was going on, ICG staffers Libby Dollar and Ryan Barnhardt purchased...." Please pardon my stupidity, but this is priceless.
I actually sent a request to join that eBay group. Not sure if they only focus on US coin counterfeits or foreign too, but will see what happens.
Hmmm - I'm a little confused by this comment. You see, I was one of the earliest members of the group that ebay used to help identify counterfeit coins. And from day 1 the identities of that group was a tightly held secret. And all members were required to sign non-disclosure statements. So I'm not sure how it could have ever changed from being private, to public, and then back to private.
Believe me Doug, it was public, and I was a member (and I joined by just clicking "join group"). At one time they had thousands of members, but paranoia set in, and they announced they were making the group private and purging the membership. This was about six years ago I believe (maybe longer). Their founder (eBay ID "barnowl") went and got himself into hot water with eBay, and he was NARU'd. The site (eBay) was different back then... anyone could email bidders, and that's what the membership of this group was doing. If (and that's a "big IF") they thought a coin was a fake (and was listed as genuine), certain members would alert the bidder. Now this may seem like a great idea to most.... however, eBay considered it "auction interference" and issued warnings to the group to cease. They didn't, and all it took was a few instances of genuine coins being declared "fake" by the group. It wasn't long after that eBay changed policy and hid bidder's IDs. There's a wealth of information in the group's threads... information that is no longer available to the casual user. It's really no different than a CT member linking an eBay auction on this site, declaring the coin fake. But because they described in detail exactly what was wrong with the coin, the belief was that counterfeiters were somehow infiltrating the group and using the information posted there to improve the quality of their fakes.
no one messaged me when i was sold a few duds in genuine slabs luckily i found out and the seller was willing to reverse the transaction circa 2007
I don't remember when eBay instituted the "hide bidder" policy... I think is was around that time or shortly thereafter. My memory fails me at times. Anyway Spock, the shear volume of coin auctions on eBay made it impossible for this "overseer" group to alert everyone. I doubt if they caught 20% of the fakes, and it was probably a lot lower than that. And catching a slabbed coin was even more difficult.
i totally agree. what i dont get is that some of those coins were 1000$ plus coins. In one instance i was even outbid but the seller called me 3 months later offering to sell me that coin. I asked fleebay if they had privacy rules and i was told the seller was within his rights. Another idiot wanted to come to my home and beat me up to teach me a lesson and neither ebay nor law enforcement would do anything till he would actually beat me up. those were scary times i stopped doing business with strangers after that
Well Jim all I can tell you is that they most certainly changed their rules then, because when I was a member you had to be invited. And only those who had been pre-approved and knew their stuff were ever invited. And then, as I said, you had to sign non-disclosure papers and have them notarized. That's a whole different world than what you're talking about. As to your later comment, yeah, I did. But I could never find a stick that I thought would be big enough to actually do any good
I am not one being asked to comment on coins, but I was asked concerning books. I couldn't volunteer, but after a few comments I was asked to participate.
