Featured It's a jungle out there- bad coins, slabs or labels.

Not all of the recent fakes and slabs are as easy as these to spot. It does make one wonder what they are thinking when they chose a TPG cert to duplicate.




I advise folks when considering a purchase of a "certified" example to always check the on-line cert as a point of reference. Many of the fakes use a correct and active cert number, but that is the 1st check, does the number actually exist?


From there it is helpful if there is an image of the coin, preferably in the slab for better comparison. If no image on the cert look-up itself there are at times a link to a recent auction where images can be found.


Also, the noted latest auction appearances in this cert are an indicator something is terribly wrong!


And then there are the slabs themselves- several of the top TPGs have good images of genuine slabs to aid in detection.

Certainly knowledge of how the genuine slab should look and a quick look at the on-line cert would make seeing through these latest ones. One of the latest scams is to "upgrade" a lower grade genuine coin in a higher graded labeled holder!



Not sure what to even say about these two, but the cert numbers were reported and the certs deactivated!


And of course the latest deceptive struck counterfeits in genuine top TPG holders are the worse and I have had many posts about them in this forum!

Best, Jack.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Excellent post, Jack!

 

I agree- great post! Thanks for the info regarding the slabs. It's easy to let your guard down when looking at them. Unfortunately, just like many things, these are also faked.

 

Anyone catch the obvious "flaw" in the NGC posted group of slabs?

 

On the group of Morgans, the grades would certainly be wrong.

 

Absolutely, but how about their spelling of "Guaranty" from NGC...

 

And, more importantly, check your seller. Is he someone you trust?

Hand wipes and bleach........

 

British English ;-)

 

great point. It's always important to double check.

 

Probably best advice is to only get coins from reputable auctions like Heritage/ Stacks/ Goldbergs for US coins.
John

 

This is why I make such a big point out of studying the coin in the slab and seeing if it agrees with the grade. 99% of the fake slabs contain coins that look nothing like the grades on the holder.

There are numerous other benefits as well, but that is a biggie.

 

Sure, but they only represent a tiny percentage of the market. Imagine if I said “only stick to CNG for ancient coins.”

The best advise is to learn how to spot the fakes in the areas you collect.

 

Great advice; not that they are immune to bad coins but they do guarantee what they auction.

 

What I meant was that, these three firms are US based, and sell mostly slabbed coins. For World/ Ancients definately all the sixbid auction houses are great. I have dealt with most of them, with good results.

 

I caught that !!!

The rest of the fakes are tougher for me to determine.

 

Another bad group of slabs, this time on Craigslist; love the comment about “no scammers”…

All have been reported to the TPGs.

 

The saddest part of all of this is that everyone reading this will pay for these fakes. Some will enter the hobby, read they should protect themselves by only buying slabbed coins, get burned, and leave, (and badmouthing all of the crooked coin collectors to anyone who will listen).

All of our coins are worth less because of these fake coins, lost collectors, etc. Worst of all, to a of people are deprived of knowing the joys of our hobby. I wish the politicians would take such things like counterfeiting US currency more seriously. They sure have accepted all of the taxes dealers and collectors have paid over the years.

 

Thanks, Jack - excellent post as always.

And those "MS65" and "MS66" Morgans...

I have better looking coins sitting in a shoebox.