There has been quite a bit of discussion lately on counterfiets on Coin Talk. I have a question. Has anyone seen or own an "Omega" gold coin? Last year or the first part of this year there was a coin dealer arrested in an area close to me (I live outside of Tampa). Several people bought coins from him and sent them in to be graded with all returned as fakes. They went to the police and the police went under cover buying several of his coins. The coins puchased by the police were professionally shown to be fakes. The police got a search warrant for his business and home. In his home they found a coin press. He would make coins at home during the night and sell them during the day so the newspaper article went. The article went on to say he was convicted of this previously and did prison time for it. It also appears several people here do a very good job of reporting fake coins to ebay. My question is does ebay remove them? I was looking at the 25th Panda Anniversary sets one night on ebay and was amazed at the price of the sets and yes the S&H was close to $200.00. My point is do people really buy these thinking they are anything but fake? I can understand someone buying a fake coin, say an 1877 IHC thinking it is real, but the old saying "If it sounds (or looks) too good to be true, it probably is." needs remembering.
To learn more about the Florida bad guys here is the link: http://www.theledger.com/article/20080429/NEWS/804290567 Click on other related stories to learn their fates. Very best regards, collect89
Great! Did he get off or what with no jail time? Didn't the court just pass a criminal on to someone else to deal with later? Obviously the judge is not a coin collector. I wonder if his lawyer accepted payment with rare and valuable coins from him. He probably moved to Tampa. Maybe I should call him and see if he has any good buffalo nickels I'm collecting. We know he'll never try to deal in fake coins again with the harsh punishment he received. Maybe while I'm with him I can get some pointers from him on how to raise my sons by teaching them things to cheat other people. Thanks for posting the article.
I have seen an Omega counterfeit coin but I do not own one. (I wish.) We had one or two threads here on CoinTalk about the Tampa dealer you mentioned. You should be able to find them doing a simple search.
