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.
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.
Not long who you could buy some pretty realistic looking 43 copper cents on Alibabba. Many of them showed up here.
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.
One of the members here, Jack Young, has a series of articles on Coin Week that shows many of these counterfeits, and they have ALL gotten into slabs by all four of the top TPG's. He has also posted threads here about them. Here are some if not most of his Coin Week articles. Most of these relate to early copper as he is an EACer, but there are a couple silver issues in there as well. Struck Counterfeit Coin of the Week: An Interesting 1798 “S-158 Large Cent” + 1-Page Attribution Guide Counterfeit Coins - A Mystery 1872-S "Half Dollar" and 1-Page Attribution Guide Struck Counterfeit Coin of the Week: 1797 “S-136” Large Cent + 1-Page Attribution Guide Struck Counterfeit Coin of the Week: 1796 “S-85” Large Cent + 1-Page Attribution Guide Counterfeit Coin of the Week: 1793 S-5 Wreath Cent + 1-Page Attribution Guide Struck Counterfeit Coin of the Week: 1805 “C-4” Half Cent + 1-Page Attribution Guide Struck Counterfeit Coin of the Week: 1806 “C-1” Half Cent + 1-Page Attribution Guide Struck Counterfeit Coin of the Week: Repaired 1836 Gobrecht Dollar + 1-Page Attribution Guide Struck Counterfeit Coin of the Week: 1787 Massachusetts “4C” Half Cent + 1-Page Attribution Guide Struck Counterfeit Coin Guide: 1806 "C-3" Half Cent Struck Counterfeit Coins: A Family of Struck Fake Half Cents Counterfeit Coin Detection - 1802 Draped Bust Silver Dollar Struck Counterfeit Coins: 1854 Huge O Liberty Seated Quarter + 1-Page Attribution Guide
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
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.
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
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.
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?
Unfortunately, what the counterfeiters are doing is apparently legal in China. https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/chinese-coin-counterfeiting-ring-4071202
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.
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.
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.