More Fake Holders.

I met a friend yesterday who I advised some time ago to buy "silver". He is not a coin collector and I meant bullion because silver has been predicted to have some dramatic upturns for some time. He turned up yesterday with around 20 coins he had bought from Etsy and Ebay and wanted me to give an opinion. Here are just two examples. All are in "PCGS" holders and bought on line from the USA. There were several Morgan dollars mainly Carson City MS 63 and above. I was somewhat taken aback at a collection potentially worth six figures.

I asked him what he had spent and none were more than $50.00. I told him that they were all fake or stolen. Here is the scary bit. I looked up the number on the holders and the "identical" coins came up. I could tell the difference but he couldn't.

Clearly these slabs are made to deceive and in the wrong hands very dangerous.

Here is the PCGS verification on one of these fake slabs. https://www.pcgs.com/cert/15199422

This could easily fool someone focused on the bargain not the reality.

One point is that if these originated from China but are being circulated from the USA surely there is a crime being committed.

The other point is that now I would never totally rely on a coin in a TPG slab to be genuine. I dare say that people handling hundreds of slabs can immediately identify a bad one by subtleties such as type face or hologram but for many the plastic was the guarantee.



Someone with a modicum of intelligence doing basic research would appreciate that such a coin at $50 cannot be real unless some philanthropic billionaire was playing games, but outside of the circus of eBay people could be hurt by such deception. It's quite subtle too , to chose a lower grade coin but valuable coin that has been graded. Even the most gullible would think twice about a high grade coin offered at a low value. A collector might consider a $5000 coin a bargain at say $3000 with a good back story, such as dealers margins, hard times etc but probably not at $5000 or at the other end $50.00. Due diligence enters somewhere.

As for TPG's, I've had a coin authenticated by a museum, including XRF analysis, condemned as fake amongst other interesting scenarios that will be the subject for a future post. Authority is no substitute for authenticity.

I have seen previous posts on fake slabs and as always caveat emptor but the authority the TPG's once had is becoming eroded.
Someone on another forum has highlighted that there are now fake Chinese websites purporting to be PCGS or NCG that will "confirm" the fake coin.
It gets worse.

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There is no substitute for common sense, when pricing alone makes it unthinkable. Your friend is a novice, so he gets a pass. Neither one of those slabs has a PCGS hologram, I've been seeing a lot of that. I've also been seeing coins that have legitimate PCGS registration numbers, but the coins don't come close to matching true views. The scary ones are coins that don't have true views.

 

The 1796 is at least a $4000 plus coin.

 

cleanest looking F15 that I've ever seen. Should be a clue.

 

@Dafydd.......... you posted " As for TPG's, I've had a coin authenticated by a museum, including XRF analysis, condemned as fake amongst other interesting scenarios that will be the subject for a future post. Authority is no substitute for authenticity." I look forward to seeing this post. Very interesting! Please mention me so I don't miss it. I have a coin I'd love to take to a Fun Show for Jack Young to look at. Same scenario. Thanks.

 

I would say with those, the grades don't really match, and designs look clearly fake. Unfortunately people will get taken on a regular basis as the lure of a "bargain" is too strong. It is unfortunate, but in a situation like this doing a little homework and commons sense would go a long way.

 

A good reminder to always closely compare the TPG photos with the actual coin.

 

That impresses me as I know nothing about them and told my friend it was a $5000 coin if real.

 

Will do. I will do this after I take it back to the museum for a second opinion. As their numismatic curator was the person who wrote the standard work on these coins, I am curious to what they say. Heritage had some rejected one of which had been submitted as a fourree and it came back as "not genuine". So no the fakers are faking fakes..... go figure.
Being pragmatic I have to say that the grader may not have seen one before or graded very few compared to the hundreds in the museum collection.

 

Yeah, common sense doesn't pop out of the vacuum fully formed. Against a backdrop of "pickers gone wild", "millions in your pocket change" and the like, anyone's starting point is likely to be dangerously off-base.

 

According to my outdated Red Book, a 1796 Draped Bust Silver Dollar (1795-1804) had a mintage of 79,920. In AG-3 is lists for $825 in all varieties. In F-12, about what the photo shows, it’s $3800 and the next grade in VF-20 is a $5500 coin. It just get higher in value from there.

 

The first coin has that bad pale gray washed out look.
The dentils and the digits are incorrect.
The second. again bad pale gray patina and the digits are wrong. The reverse is incorrect.

 

You need to learn and understand the fine details of the slab. I knew it was counterfeit in seconds.

The obverse of the slab is missing the embossed PCGS lettering. Game/Set/Match.

While I'm at it, the font is incorrect.

The hologram is also wrong



PCGS' has an actual gold shield not silver.

I recommend PCGS' Holder Museum (https://www.pcgs.com/holdermuseum), but much better is John's OldSlabHolders site, https://oldslabholders.com/pcgs-slab-generations

 

Anyone notice the barcodes for the 1796 and 1800 are the same? We have been seeing these slabs with Morgans for a couple of years now; there is no PCGS insignia in the front lower right-hand corner, the labels are stick-ons on the outside of the holder and the barcodes gibberish and won't read. I have to admit this is the 1st time I have seen these bad draped bust dollars in the bad not-PCGS slabs!

@Dafydd I am curious if the seated reverse is mated to one of the draped busts or an error and just another of the fakes?

 

Saw these same coins for sale on ETSY, although they claimed they were
"restrikes" no of course not. And the price was absurdly low.

 

I have a 1893O Morgan raw coin I'd like you to look at it. I'll ship it at my expense round trip if you'd like to look at it. It appears to be AU58. PCGS said it isn't legit. I tried to direct message you but you have that feature turned off. If it's a fake, it's a good one. Looks a bit mushy, but AU's often do. Send me a message in my private messages if you like. I am pretty certain it is 90% silver. Weight is correct. Thanks.

 

A clear give away is the PCGS logo on the bottom right hand corner is missing, here on the genuine article you see it clearly.

 

I appreciate the information of this post and others like it. It is disheartening though to think of what it does to the hobby long-term. Great appreciation for anybody that spots these and gets the word out.

 

There are plenty of ways the TPGs could improve the security of their product.

The reality is that they believe they've hit the trade-off point between security and cost. And they have no real interest in making it more secure.

If PCGS gave a rats fuzzy posterior they could have been taking photos and posting them all along like NGC does.

Their NFC chip is more secure than NGC's enhanced QR code for in-hand validation.

If you wanted to interpret that as an interest in protecting their dealer network and less interest in protecting online e-commerce like fleabay and random auction sites? You could certainly offer that up as a interpretation I would not argue with

 

Its amazing why this isnt required by PCGS allot of coins i was considering had no photo that means i no purchase...LOL