Any of you who visit here often can probably recall my commenting that fake slabs are very few and far between. Well, not anymore. In the past few months I have read reports and seen pics of 3 fake ANACS slabs. And now there are examples of fake NGC slabs showing up on ebay. I have no doubt that someone will soon discover fake PCGS slabs as well. There are even reports of the fakes in some dealer's shops. NGC knows, ANACS knows and YOU need to know ! In the interest of warning all of you I am posting a link to another forum for your information - Fake NGC Slabs
Thanks for the correction GD. It seems like these con artists will always find a way to screw people over.
I must say that the slabs are impressive, which I find to be very scary. I suspect NGC will be doing all they can to stop this, and I wish them luck in doing so. I hope this does not become a pervasive problem.
It is pretty scary. The only way I can tell the difference from the photos is that they used the wrong font.
Thanks for the info and site link As it said on that site There are definite differences in the font they are using for the grade Here are some comparison pictures of just the label area. Sorry for the quality of the images. Labels from the fakes are above and a label from a real label below them. Maybe they can use different colors matched to serial numbers and a buyer can check it on there NGC site to see if color and numbers are good
Is the coin in that slab fake as well or just incorrectly graded? If that can be determined from the photo. I see that NGC has slabbed 7 of these, does the number on the slab even correspond to one of those seven? And even if it does, I assume NGC has archive photos of all the coins they slab (or do they?).
Thanks Doug for the great post. This may give the CAC more ammo. I am assuming that they take an old slab insert with the security sticker on it, put a new coin label on it, and put it into a new slab. Those security stickers the TPG's use are only good if they make them destructible if removed from the slab. They will get the font down as they realize their error. You know it's funny that a couple guys on the other board blame China for this. As far as I know counterfeiting goes on in every country. Some of the best counterfeits have probably come from right here in the US. It's just a little easier to do it in China. The TPG's obviously will need a better solution. The interesting part will be how they deal with all of the old slabs in the market. Their reputation suffers every time a fake show up, will they pony up and offer a replacement slab that is more secure???
It would be helpful to me if you would specify the way slabs are being faked. From what I see above, fake labels are one method. But is the plastic part real, i.e., carefully opened and resealed slab? And what about the company logo on the back? I would like to know what to look for.
Wow... well that's very scary. I suppose it was bound to happen though. I truly hope the TPGs do everything they can to stay on top of this. I also think providing some security features on the labels like the security features used on currency or even like Microsoft does to its software ID keys would be a good thing.
Only those who have either: a) Bought coins depending on the TPG to authenticate, or b) Bought the slab rather than the coin will lose. It now becomes even more obvious why it behooves us as collectors to learn to authenticate and grade the coins OURSELVES!!!
This is very scary, not only do you have to be an expert at coin authentication, but now slab authentication. A good reason to stick with cheaper raw coins.
I think an important question is... What are we going to do, as a community, about this problem? As a community, do we have the time/resources/willpower to do anything about this? As it stands right now, we (the community) do a pretty decent job of scanning eBay for problems, and in many cases reporting those problems. We have had a pretty decent victory recently with the new eBay rules about TPG's and this shows that we can actually make a difference if we try hard enough. But are we really going to be able to check on all the new slabs that hit eBay? I think they said on the other forum that this is like 1000 NCG slabs a day! And there are reports of other companies out there that have fakes. The final question is, is this really any of our business? This is really a matter between eBay and the seller, and NGC, should we get involved? When you think about the problems we have with SGS and the actions we take against them (him) these could have repercussions on our cointalk community. We say and do alot of things that hamper SGS's business at times. We could potentially be opening ourselves up to a lawsuit, or open Peter up to a lawsuit. As a community do we have the resources to defend ourselves? I don't think that one of these fake slabbers will attack our community legally, but there are other forms of attack. Do we want to deal with this? Personally I think that it is in our best interest to at least try and do something about this. I have no clue what we should do. I am in no way an expert at finding fakes, but I will try. I will spend some of my free time looking at auctions, and questioning those that need it. I just hope that other people in this community feel the same way that I do.
