Producing 'real' fakes

Discussion in 'Coin Chat' started by goossen, Sep 21, 2020.

  1. goossen

    goossen Senior Member

    There are some decent quality fakes around, which fall short by not using the right metal, not having the same weight, size, etc.
    I'm assuming the really good ones are not casts but actually minted coins; which means counterfeiters are able to produce dies.
    So having a fake die, what is preventing them of creating a 'duplicate' of a key date or a super expensive error using the correct material? Let's say a 1943 cent or a 1878 CC Morgan.
     
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  3. medoraman

    medoraman Supporter! Supporter

    They do. The only saving grace is that they USUALLY get greedy, and its a surplus of "rare" coins on the market in a short period of time that is the first red flag.
     
  4. Randy Abercrombie

    Randy Abercrombie Supporter! Supporter

    Not long who you could buy some pretty realistic looking 43 copper cents on Alibabba. Many of them showed up here.
     
  5. Conder101

    Conder101 Numismatist

    With possibly just a few exceptions the counterfeiters stopped making cast fakes thirty years ago or more. Pretty much everything since then has been die struck

    Absolutely nothing, and they do. And some of them have been good enough to get slabbed by the TPG's as genuine.
     
  6. goossen

    goossen Senior Member

    That was my next question, if they would pass.
     
  7. Conder101

    Conder101 Numismatist

    NSP, capthank, Insider and 7 others like this.
  8. Mainebill

    Mainebill Bethany Danielle

    They can be so scary that die variety experts have to catch them as they often use the wrong obverse and reverse marriage. Or they use a genuine damaged coin to make the dies. Sometimes it’s even the wrong reed count on the edge to tell
     
  9. John Wright

    John Wright Well-Known Member

    The Chinese have been doing this en-masse since 2008.
     
  10. Jack D. Young

    Jack D. Young Well-Known Member

    Thank you for the response Conder101! I just saw this post so a late response by me.

    As John noted we have seen decent ones back to 2007/2008 with a series of large cent fakes based on the 1833 N-5 variety (John warned EAC members back when these 1st hit), BUT these used a genuine source coin to start and then they changed the dates to create the "family"- you can still buy them from China and they are what I have called a mid-level counterfeit in terms of being deceptive.

    https://coinweek.com/counterfeits/struck-counterfeit-coins-a-family-of-struck-fake-large-cents/

    They stepped up their game from 2008 by making dies just for the specific denomination/ variety they were counterfeiting and these are extremely deceptive as I have tried to capture in my Coin Week articles, etc.
     
  11. goossen

    goossen Senior Member

    Very interesting read, thank you!
     
    Jack D. Young likes this.
  12. john65999

    john65999 Well-Known Member

    I HAVE 43-s copper i bought off alibab for 13,.00 free shipping, lol and damned if it does not look legit, even the weight is correct
     
  13. justafarmer

    justafarmer Senior Member

    Yes many are so well done you have to look to die markers to attribute them. A coins not exhibiting die characteristics that should be present or A coin exhibiting die characteristics that shouldn't be present.
     
    Jack D. Young likes this.
  14. Jack D. Young

    Jack D. Young Well-Known Member

    My 1872-S half is a perfect example!

    1872-s.jpg
     
  15. DarkRage666

    DarkRage666 Ͳìɾҽժղҽʂʂ Ͳąҟҽղ ටѵҽɾ

    Post it in a separate thread
     
  16. Jim Dale

    Jim Dale Well-Known Member

    Are our Secret Service responsible to find and prosecute? If the counterfeiters are still in China (or where ever...) do we have the ability and legal right to prosecute them or are they hiding behind the coattails of the Chinese government?
     
  17. dltsrq

    dltsrq Grumpy Old Man

  18. Maxfli

    Maxfli Well-Known Member

    My understanding is that it's competely legal in China, as long as the coins being counterfeited aren't Chinese. Hence, impossible for outside authorities to prosecute.
     
  19. medoraman

    medoraman Supporter! Supporter

    I think they do not want to be bothered. They can prosecute here. Charge the dealer with a crime unless he shows who sold to him, work up the food chain until you get to importer. Then lock them up and take away the importers, and there would be no demand to make these.
     
  20. Maxfli

    Maxfli Well-Known Member

    Sure, they can go after parties in the supply chain outside of China. I was specifically referring to the Chinese counterfeiters themselves.

    But yes, I would agree, even with respect to those parties that U.S. authorities CAN realistically go after, as long as it's just collector coins, they won't bother.
     
  21. tenorduckroll

    tenorduckroll Member

    Chinese will be and always have been counterfeiting coins in high quality too.
     
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