I get the feeling since I have been on this forum that some of you are fake crazy..You think that every other coin on ebay is a fake..Most of the coins on ebay are authentic over 96%, maybe higher 99%. I admit that a lot of coins on ebay are cleaned or touched up in some way, but they are real. Most honest dealers will note that the coin has been cleaned. If I am in doubt, I always e-mail the seller. OK, what are your feelings on this?
Whether its 4% or 40%, there are way too many fakes on EBay, and we get a lot of Newbies asking about them. I'm sure the percentage of fakes discussed here is much higher than the percentage of all EBay coins.
I would agree...I think the fake percentage is higher with ancients. I have seen, without doubt, a lot of fakes of all eras and criminally misleading listings...I have bought a fake. But with the massive amount of sells there...the fake ratio is probably small. I never proclaim a fake unless its just plain obvious and I am completely sure...I dont call out fakes, if I think it might be, I just dont bid. If I do call a fake I make sure to prompt them to get others opinions because I am not an expert...but to date, save a few coins I thought were tooled but werent...I have a good track record in the areas I know...
My feelings are that there are a lot more fakes out there than most people realize. And they're not all on ebay - alot of them are in collections or in dealer's shops. I would agree with you that 95% of the owners of these coins have no idea that they are fake. Also I think it is important to realize that when most people say a coin is a fake that it also includes altered coins as well as counterfeits. And if you listen to the reports of the professional graders at coin shows they are sometimes saying that up to 90% of the coins brought to them on the floor are fakes. No that doesn't apply to common dates and mints although they are often fakes - it primarily applies to the more scarce or expensive coins.
I think that part of our function as coin collectors is to promote and encourage new collectors into the hobby. I would rather that a new collector come here to CT before buying coins on Ebay and ask about a particular coin that he/she is interested in than unknowingly bid and finally win a "fake" coin and lose possibly 100s of dollars and lose trust in all sellers and in the end give up the hobby. If we as long time collectors can pick out and identify the counterfiet coins on Ebay and post them in CT they can become learning tools for the newer (and some older) collectors and make them more aware of what to look for. I agree that we only catch a fraction of the counterfiet coins that are posted for sale on Ebay every day and unfortunately not all of them get pulled in time. Thats what I have to say about that.
You must not look at large cents - you see a large portion of cleaned coins and yes I agree with the percentages mentioned. The better sellers note it, but a lot of sellers do not mention cleaning or other problems. As for fake coins - what would you ask the seller? Haven't you wondered why on some of the more rare key dates why they are not slabbed? And yes I know that a lot of them are not fake, but also a lot of them are problem coins that the seller does not mention. Most of the mentioned auctions are "problem" auctions. You just need to be careful on Ebay. I will be the first to admit I am not good enough to spot some of the fakes.
One thing you must realize is that by its very nature the forum is biased TOWARD the presentation here of fakes. Yes 99% of the coins on eBay are genuine. We see those and accept them as real and never bring them here to question them. Instead it is that other 1% that we drag into the forum here to ask others if they think they are fake. So naturally the majority of those pieces are decried. It is the same way with the coins taken to the graders at the coin shows. Yes 90% of them are fake or have problems. Why? Because the reason they are taken to the graders is because there is already a question about them. Coins that are obviously genuine or obviously problem free are not shown to the graders for a verbal opinion. Just the questionable or borderline cases. (Some series do have an unusually high number of fake or problem coins submitted but not 90% of all coins submitted. If they was true the services would be having to handle over 10 million coins per year to actually slab the number that they do, and the number of units processed shown on their financial reports does not support that. That is why I'm assuming the 90% fake figure mentioned earlier is for verbal opinions.)
Ed: Fake crazy? Well, perhaps our reactions to the fakes is a little over the top, but crazy? I don't think so, I just hate to see people getting ripped off. And, how about the fact that those Chinese fakes arenow being sold with a punch saying replica? Was it crazy of us to fight them?
I tend to agree with Doug. Additionally, better dates and higher valued coins are more likely to be fake. I think that most of the common date and junk coins on ebay are legit. But, when you look at higher valued coins, the ones that often catch our attention as we scan ebay, a higher percentage of those are fakes. I wonder how many fake 16-D Dimes there are on ebay for every genuine one?
thank god for the common and 'junk' coins...they are some of my favs But without doubt its best to err on the side of caution...if you have any misgivings at all...just dont buy it.
I only bought proof sets initially on ebay and now only slabbed coins from NGC or PGCS. Just seems safer to me.
Scary thing is, there are now hundreds of replica auctions. One seller alone, located in China has complete sets up now. Some crook could easily " lose " the replica stamp. If crooks worked as hard at doing something honest as they do stealing, they might amount to something decent in most cases.
