Fake coins... a legitimate place in our hobby?

To Coleguy.... Your words:

"Just because some people are either too dumb to tell the difference between cheap fakes and the real thing, or just dont have the basic will to care either way, doesn't make it right."

I find this statement very crude and ignorant on it's face. Not everyone is a coin expert. Not everyone can spend endless hours pouring over book after book, picture after picture to become an 'expert' as you say. To say someone is 'too dumb' to know any better is very rude and uncalled for.

Don't ever forget, most people start collecting coins for the love of it. Most start off with the easy stuff.... Lincolns... Roosies.. what have you. Later on, when the finances allow, most people grow their collection.

MANY MANY MANY people buy coins early in their collecting lives without any knowledge what so ever. Yes.. people get duped... Yes... people purchase coins they later regret.... However... that doesn't make them 'too dumb'. They have not learned about the craft enough... That I agree on.... but to outright call someone DUMB is horrible.

I am a robotics teacher. I've had just over 15,000 students come through my classrooms over the past 20 years. I think I know a thing or two about a person's ability to learn.

Just my two cents. Sorry for venting.

 

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This is very true...also I don't know that AT is really defined in the market either, at least to a certain degree. I'm talking about the difficulty of detecting AT verses NT...I'm talking about what constitutes the process of AT. Now, everyone knows chemically altering the surface of a coin and placing it in an oven as AT. But, is intentionally placing a coin in an environment for a long time AT? Is placing a coin in a paper envelope on the window sill for 6 months (with obvious intention to tone it) AT? Or even less suspicious, is using coin folds/books known to tone coins in the hopes of toning a coin AT?

You or I may have specific ideas on what the source of acceptable toning is...but there is certainly no widely accepted standard. I think if we had an accepted standard...we might be able to devise better ways to distinguish NT from AT. But then again, maybe that would just make it more complicated.

 

I think too many people in this world mistake lack of intelligence for lack of education (or on the flip side...too many people mistake education for intelligence). I'm not just walking about coins, I see it in all walks of life.

 

Some of my favorite coins are the Gallery Mint Museum reproductions, which are all marked copy, either on the obverse or reverse. These coins fill gaps in my collection when the cost is not affordable or so high, I choose not to spend my hard earned dollars on the real thing. An added benefit is these coins can be displayed without much concern that they will be stolen.

Counterfeits meant to deceive have no place in any market.

 

I personally agree with you. To me, if the intent was to color the coin...then it is AT, no matter how it was done. I love those threads where people ask "how do I tone a coin naturally?" when the only answer is you don't.

 

I wasn't specifically talking about coins. Like Camaro said above, it was pertaining to the original statement about people buying fake watches and purses and being perfectly happy about it. That, in itself was the ignorance I was referring to, in the context I plainly stated so. Nowhere in that statement did I once mention coins.

 

I think the modern made counterfeits...coming out of China today do far more harm to the hobby than good. I know some people collect these, and I'm fine with that...but they are a big problem IMHO. Now, I know that many contemporary counterfeits are collected and I'm find with that. My concern is...at the rate things are going, we might reach a point where Chinese fakes are more common than the real thing.

 

I don't know, is that a black market - is it legal to sell a counterfeit if it's sold as such?