Counterfeit - what does it mean ?

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Well,in the Canadian Traders' Token series,the contemporary counterfeits are of interest to collectors,as they circulated as Canada's money.Some sometimes command a premium above the original piece.The same situation applies to the 18th Century British Isles Traders' Token series as well.

 

Hey, every modern counterfeit (I mean, current) sells for more than the real thing. I paid $30 for a fake Sacky from Ecuador, and some sold on ebay for lots more than that. Also, forgeries of UK pound coins routinely sell for at least double the face value. I did pay less than 2 pounds for a fake two pound coin, but shipping pushed it above face value.

I have always thought it might be worth counterfeiting coins to sell as counterfeits. They are collected and have value in their own right (until the govt comes by to confiscate them).

This opens a whole new subject, though. Older counterfeits like mentioned in the opening post – are they any more “legal” to own than a fake Sacky or pound coin? In reality, the answer is yes, but in a theoretical sense I am not so sure.

 

It is expressly against U.S. law to buy and sell counterfeit U.S. money. There is no question about it. That also applies to any kind of counterfeit money from any standing government, or any corporation, foreign or domestic, such as counterfeit U.K. pounds.

According to an interview I conducted with a Secret Service agent last summer, the government merely confiscates the contraband of innocent sellers. "We didn't know..." often works. However, if you actively counterfeit coins to sell them, you cannot plead ignorance. I would hate to be in your shoes when they show up.

Well, yes, counterfeits of money that is no longer current are not a concern of some of the laws. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is not with us today, so the U.S. Secret Service has no interest in counterfeit Koronas. However, there is still the Hobby Protection Act, which is also a federal law. The HPA does make it illegal to create fakes, unless they are clearly marked as such -- as defined in the law: incuse, so high, etc.

The collectibility of genuine historical artifacts, albeit "contemporary counterfeits" is established. So, that is safe in a legal sense. Blacksmith tokens, fourees, raised banknotes, etc., are valid areas of investigation and collecting.

I always assume that any serious collector has a copy of the Coin World Alamanc and therefore knows the actual wording of the relevant laws.

 

Allow me to suggest something perhaps difficult to express except by analogy.

We know stories from mythology about Midas and Arachne and others who failed to exercise good judgment. In our modern myths, we have Sauriman and Darth Vader. Vader, was redeemed, ultimately. Sauriman was not, of course. In both cases, overwhelming false pride led them to their destruction. Sauriman, in particular, just wanted to "study" Sauron's ways. Eventually, he became Sauron's slave.

If you involve yourself with fakes, frauds, phonies, forgeries, counterfeits, copies, knock-offs, and such, you move away from real numismatics. Eventually, you become ensnared in that shadowland. You buy fake phonies, counterfeit forgeries, copies of frauds. Inevitably, you cross some arbitrary line and you no longer know what is real and what is not.

We all like a good crime story; and some, like The Italian Job, will make good guys out of the bad guys. Even that movie, however, works because there is a real bad guy. So, we still know the difference between right and wrong there.

At some level, however, in numismatics or in anything, once you get focused on evil, it entrances you, and you cannot escape.

 

Well, I guess you are the King of Coin Collecting, and anyone who does not share your library inventory is not a "serious collector." I did not realize that the hobby was an absolute monarchy (or is it dictatorship?). Is it still OK if I collect coins as an "unserious collector"? Are there any national boundries to your jurisdiction? I am in Germany, but maybe you have cut some deal with the EU.

As for older fakes being legal, I am not so sure about that, which is why I raised it as an issue. Perhaps the law is very specific, but as far as I know, there is no clear distinction between a fake UK pound dated 2000 and a fake French franc dated 1908. Maybe there is the word "current" in the law, but I am not aware of it. Furthermore, what is "current"? German marks are no longer issued, but they can still be redeemed at the Central Bank. Is a fake 200 mark note legal? Is it legal in Germany? How about in the US?

Another thing to consider: in many countries, counterfeiting is not nearly the crime it is in the US.

Also, despite the letter if the law, the feds simply do not chase collectors of counterfiets. If you are making counterfeit modern coins or currency to spend, they would be on you in a second, but fakes are sold as such (and sometimes passed as real) on ebay every day of the week and yet no federal agents are bothering anyone. This may not jibe with the lawbooks, but it is reality.

One last thing.....all old collectable, "legitimate" counterfeits were modern at one time. I am thankful that some desperado in times past hid them away for us to collect today.

 

Good aritcle GD!

I've been meaning to pick up some fakes to look at so I can start to tell what I need to look for when buying a rare coin (like I ever do that)

I think I have heard that as long as you have your fakes or such label as fake and such the Gov can't do anything to you because you are not ripping anybody off--that is just what I heard.
I asked a detective I know if they ever get counterfeits because I wanted to buy them, but he said they had to send them to the FBI and couldn't keep any...I would think it would be helpful to the police to be able to see counterfeits so when they were asked about one they would be able to tell a little better...

Speedy

 

You know counterfeits by studying the genuine material. Fakes are fakes because they fail to conform to the standard set by authentic material.

It becomes a "chicken and egg" problem. You say you want to know fakes so you can recognize them, so you buy fakes to study. However, how was that fake identified in the first place? Ultimately, it comes down to comparing the suspect to the genuine item.

There is no need to "study" fakes.

 

If you are in Germany, then you need to be concerned with German and EU laws. You did not specify that in your question. You mentioned buying a Sackie for $30, so I assumed that you are an American.

The law in the USA is very specific.

What do you mean by "federal agents"? If you mean the BUNDES guys, then, I have no information on that. On the other hand, I do have statements from the U.S. Secret Service that they do, indeed, shut down eBay auctions with counterfeit money for sale. The fact is that there is more crime than they can chase. It is still crime.

Lack of enforcement is not endorsement. As I pointed out when I spoke on the subject "Counterfeits: Threat or Menace?" at the 2004 ANA convention in Pittsburgh, when you are pulled over for speeding -- or in Germany that would would be passing on the right -- you cannot point to all the other speeders in order to get out of the ticket. A five-alarm fire downtown that takes all the cops to the center of the city does not give you a license to rob a jewelry store in the suburbs on the grounds that "no one is doing anything about it."

 

Since you mentioned the regulations in Germany, there is a difference between "historic counterfeits" (those made before 1850) and newer ones in German law. See §11 Münzgesetz - link below - for details.

In other words, you may sell, buy and own such classic counterfeit coins. This regulation takes into account that products such as the Becker pieces are highly sought after by collectors. (In the early 19c, Carl W. Becker made excellent copies of mostly ancient pieces, and also created a few phantasy coins.) Selling/offering/buying other counterfeits that are not legal tender is unlawful.

Counterfeiting coins that are not legal tender is AFAIK a "simple" breach of the law (de: Ordnungswidrigkeit) which usually incurs a fine. If you counterfeit legal tender, however, that is a criminal offense (de: Straftat), and you may well end up in jail.

Euro coins and notes are "protected" by various EU regulations and directives as well as by member state law. This is the EU (Council) Regulation 1338/2001 in German:
http://www.eu-kommission.de/pdf/dokumente/Eurofälschung.pdf

This is the German "Münzgesetz" (Coins Act):
http://www.bwpv.de/dokumente/muenzgesetz_52f2a23c06e04eef8e3.pdf

Copies of coins that are not legal tender any more can be made and sold provided they are designed as copies ("als Nachahmungen gestaltet"). The MünzG itself does not specify what the latter means, but the BWPV (Federal Securities Administration) as the monitoring authority has a list of specifications here:
http://www.bwpv.de/dokumente/hinweise_muenzgesetz_c225d91700ecd53945f.pdf

Christian

 

Counterfeit anything fails on several grounds, by necessity. It is not accidental or circumstantial or coincidental.

1. Counterfeits are not internally consistent.
2. Counterfeits do not conform to known data.

This applies, for instance, to incorrect ideas in chemistry or mathematics. As I said, it has to be this way by reality. In terms of numismatics, your theory that there may be an unlisted die variety for which a counterfeit could be mistaken demands proof. Can you show an example of this?

I agree that it cuts both ways: you are entitled to your opinions and being entitled to them does not make you right.

As for not changing, actually, my opinion on this has changed. When I was a newbie and collected everything, I collected fakes, too. The coins I destroyed at the ANA in Pittsburgh were coins from my own collection. However, a couple of years ago, a light went on. Since then, the evidence has been easier and easier to find to condemn the collecting of counterfeits. Yes, it is true that there are the Bungtown Coppers and the Roman Fourees. An assortment of exceptions does not make a rule.

Have you ever seen The Maltese Falcon? At the end of the movie, the dame wants Sam Spade to fake it, to pretend that he does not know that she killed Miles Archer. Spade will not help her fake reality. "It's bad for business. Bad for everyone. Bad all the way around."

 

Merci beaucoups!

Thanks for that link! I am sort of sorry to have missed the thread but really am happy to be able to read it all at once. And we still do not know what the coins weighs.

One thing, GDJMSP, is that neither you nor Ian relied on known counterfeits, unless I missed something. You both argued based on known facts about genuine coins.

(Your most basic problem was that of distance. You were all in cyberspace. Get the coin, the experts, the books, the rulers, the gram scales, and the lenses all in one place at one time and the solutions come quicker.)

Be all that as it may, I captured and printed much what you and Ian wrote for my own references and pointers. Thanks, many times over.

As I said a while back, your good work here is one reason that I am writing up Coin Talk for an upcoming column. I

n that discussion, you placed a link to www.cgb.fr -- the Compagnie Generale de Bourse. Nice site. Who cares? There's lots of nice sites... So, I clicked on the Contacts and got all their names and then went over the ANS library and looked them up. I got two pages of printouts without listing the details, just the names and titles. Tets... Fel Temp Reparatios... book reviews... and in addition to all that parlez-vous, the occasional monograph in Italian... These guys are pretty serious. So, this site becomes a Bookmark for me, an important resource.

Murky bow cups.

 

I agree that counterfeit coins can be very collectible. Don't pay any attention to the people who try to scare you away from this by citing laws and referring to the Secret Service. The law regarding simple possession of counterfeit U.S. coins (without intent to sell or pass as genuine) is not clear, and nobody has ever been arrested in the U.S. for possessing a counterfeit of a collectable coin. The most visible numismatic legal expert in the country, Armen R. Vartian, legal columnist for Coin World and author of the book A Legal Guide to Buying and Selling Art and Collectibles, has stated flat out that the statutes do not make collecting counterfeit U.S. coins a crime.

According to U.S. law, the government does have the authority to confiscate counterfeits of U.S. coins (or paper money), regardless of their age, since they're all legal tender, but the Secret Service has a hands-off policy with collectable coins. It's hasn't done this in more than 30 years. It has much bigger fish to fry -- going after organized crime and terrorist elements counterfeiting current currency.

Anybody interesting in collecting counterfeit coins, if you're an ANA member, should borrow the video "Famous Fakes and Fakers" by Ken Bressett, editor of A Guide Book of United States Coins (the Red Book) and past president of the ANA. Bressett is an avid collector of counterfeit coins, and he does a nice job sharing his enthusiasm as well as illustrating some of the more fascinating counterfeit coins through the ages.

I can assure you, in contrast to Marotta's statement, that Bressett still knows the difference between what is real and what isn't. Marotta also says there's no need to study fakes. But he earlier said that he stopped collecting ancient coins because he was afraid of fakes. I believe he has since had a change of heart and is collecting again. But studying fakes can indeed protect you from getting cheated with them, which is the reason of course that publications such as Counterfeit Coin Bulletin exist (and will hopefully be published again soon) and books such as Coin Grading and Counterfeit Detection exist.

But I'll have to respectively disagree with GDJMSP's assertion that it wasn't the criminal element that over the centuries has engaged in counterfeiting because they didn't have access to gold and silver. Actually, most ancient counterfeits were gold and silver plated base-metal coins, typically bronze or lead. They were indeed created by criminals, and the creation of them was at times punishable by death.

I do agree with you that counterfeiting has been used an a weapon in war from the earliest of times. The U.S. government is one of many that did this, in its case counterfeiting Nazi money during World War II. This is one of many fascinating elements to counterfeit coins. Studying all this doesn't in some Twilight Zone way make you evil, just as reading crime novels doesn't turn you into a serial murderer.

The most enjoyable aspect of all this to me is helping prevent others, and myself, from getting cheated. A lot of others enjoy this aspect of it too. More here:

http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

 

OK. That makes more sense. In your post you just said "In ancient times and all the way up until the modern age - it wasn't the criminal element who counterfeited coins - it was governments." So that's what I was responding to.

It's interesting hearing about the medieval and early modern fakes you speak of. This is an area I Know very little about. I'm just getting started reading the book The Counterfeit Coin Story, by Ken Peters, and perhaps he covers this. But I'm not impressed with the first two chapters. Lots of factual mistakes about Greek coinage, which raises credibility concerns with the rest of the book. But Peters says in his intro that he has written this from a British point of view, so perhaps he's on more solid footing with British coins and counterfeits of them.

 

That does raise an interesting point: can an issuer counterfeit their own money? In The Histories, Herodotus says that he does not believe the story that Polycrates of Samos cheated his Spartan mercenaries by paying them in coins made of lead covered in gold. Yet, even if not accepted, that story does carry a message. The Ptolemies engaged in successive debasements. So did the Roman emperors. Those example would be a kind of counterfeiting.

Much later, I believe that Queen Elizabeth I of England actually raised the purity of her coinage in response to the realities of international trade.