Repost of one of my Coin Week Counterfeit Articles

On Coin Week this week:



https://coinweek.com/counterfeits/s...QLfqcVC19VA9fVKGlBX-ZYvKljc9o5xqVFXT1T9lXI1A0

One of the subject examples is now in a genuine TPG holder as genuine; I wonder when all of the really deceptive counterfeits will just be considered "genuine"...

 

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Is PCGS aware of this?

 

I really enjoy your articles, Jack.... Is it a safe assumption that these high quality counterfeits aren't the typical Chinese Ali-Babba garbage?

 

This will continue to happen as the counterfeits have improved so much over the years. Graders are under pressure to cut down the several month turnaround times. They do not have the luxury to compare coins with images. Right now I'll put Jack, and several EAC members/dealers at the top of the copper authenticators.

IMO, major TPGS are playing catch up because they examine coins with their naked eye or hand lenses. The days of the hand lens for authentication ended long ago. I got caught up in complacency fifteen years ago while working at NCS. Jimmy, brought in a copper pattern from the NGC grading room that he was suspicious of. I looked at it for a few seconds, told him it was genuine and resumed conserving a coin. Within a minute, Ronnie came into NCS and told me he thought the coin was a counterfeit. I got up from the sink, went into my room with the stereo scope and in a few seconds I saw that the piece was a counterfeit - and not a very good one. You cannot have any idea what I felt like missing that fake because I did not use the scope with florescent light as I ALWAYS DO in the office when authenticating a coin. I'm 100% sure my reputation as a top authenticator went down-the-drain with the graders across the hall that I formerly worked with before helping to start NCS.

I know for a fact that coins are being imaged at the major TPGS so photo files will help detect fakes. One other thing that should be done (it won't be) is that a report with diagnostic images should be prepared and sent to each of the four major TPGS when any extremely deceptive counterfeit turns up. In other words, there should be more cooperation between services.

Additionally, there should always be more than one grader + a finalizer on a box of coins. I can think of dozens of times over the years where a counterfeit was initially missed by an experienced professional authenticator. See above when that exact thing happened once to me.

 

So if I'm reading this and the article correctly, the "discovery" example from 2015 was subsequently submitted and came back genuine?

 

Correct.

 

Yes, these are the best of the best, struck from dies created from genuine examples and many on genuine era planchetts. We found the distributor and the $ man was in China, distributors in College Station Texas where the genuine coins were sent.

 

Yes; actually had a table display at EAC 2022 in St. Louis.

 

Just received this from a friend- we have truly lost it...

 

There is a problem w/o a solution because it is possibly too late and too expensive. First some history.

In the 1970's at the ANA Certification Service which I consider to be the actual Birth of Coin Authentication in the US, we ditched most of the prevailing and crude methods used to authenticate coins. Our system of diagnostics and high power examination replaced weights, measurements and the opinion of many numismatic "experts." Unfortunately, I see now it was not good enough. That's because after fifty years, technology has surpassed it!

In 1985 I told a seminar student that there was no one in the world that has spent the time I have viewing coins at high power and if he started doing it as soon as class was over he could never catch up to me. However, I told him that when he gets back to his lab he should start examining coins using his electron microscope and after a short time he would know more of what the surface of genuine coins should look like than me and no one would be able to surpass his time viewing them at the highest magnifications!

Hoskins and I would joke about how crude the fakes of early 70's were and that if we were to go overseas to help the counterfeiters we could help them make coins that would fool everyone. Well, it turns out they didn't need our help and a few years later some exceptional (for the time) and very deceptive coins began to appear in the market. Back then, high power examination of coins kept us ahead of everyone - including the counterfeiters.

Today, the race between the authenticators and counterfeiters is a close one and I feel they are pulling ahead. Proof is that more coins are being sent out as a "No Decision" by the TPGS and more counterfeits than ever are being slabbed as genuine.

If pre 1985 authentication would have been more detailed, including images of coins (including edges) plus material analysis I feel we would not be having so many fakes slip past at this time.

Prediction: The time is going to come when owning a counterfeit is going to be almost as satisfactory as owning the genuine example because they will be identical.

 

Are they the same coin? Probably just lighting but the gouge extending from 2:00 to 8:00 doesn't look as pronounced on the OP coin as it is on the Discovery piece.

 

Answer me this - Why haven't the Grading Services teamed up with firms such as
https://www.edmdept.com/3d-metrology-services/ for developing a system for attribution/authentication and counterfeit detection. They have expended countless resources in trying to develop a system to perform the subjective function/process of grading. Here we have a purely objective function. Either the coin design is correct or it is not. Either the proper die markers are there or they are not. Either the coin has sister marks of other known counterfeits or it doesn't.

 

The TPGS don't need to team up with anyone because if they wish to spend the money every coin sent in can be "fingerprinted." The images can be linked to a computer program and coins with identical defects (done by eye now) can be ID'ed.

In the same way, any coin sent in and graded could be put into the same data base and it would not receive a higher grade the next time it was sent in! It could only go lower.

Now answer me this - why in the heck would any successful money making "factory" wish to do that!

 

To state the obvious: Only when the demonstrable or recognized cost of not doing it exceeds the demonstrable or recognized cost of doing it.

The fact that the TPGs are not now doing it could be due to many possible factors, not just greed or self-interest - although you will seldom go wrong with those explanations.

 

I did follow your link today and read all of your articles. It was very interesting and also well written. I think you do a service to collectors here and everywhere else. Thankyou.

 

Exactly the promotional spiel promoted and advantages claimed for PCGS's Expert System back in 1991. If they could do it back then they could definitely do it today.

 

Not exactly. AFAIK, the "Expert" was touted to be "true" computer grading. AFAIK, when it was demonstrated that's what it did. It graded the coin and fingerprinted it so it could always be ID'ed and graded the same.

As I remember, Both Ken Bressett and I were looking at the demo at the same time and agreed the grade picked by the "Expert" for the coin was wacky and the system was a bust!

HOWEVER, as I have written and said for years since then...

A computer grading system can be done anytime since then. Professional graders grade the coin (very carefully this time), scan the coin in detail (the fingerprint) and that coin will be graded exactly the same FOREVER when ID'ed by the computer. Its grade can only go down if it is changed by surface alteration or wear. Unfortunately, that is not true computer grading but IMO, the results would be better than the "Expert" and its grade would be set forever eliminating gradeflation and market changes. ONLY ITS PRICE WOULD CHANGE over time.

BTW, those obsolete archival graded coins from the 1970s still retain their original "technical" grade no matter what they are called today! Only their value and commercial grade has changed. For example, many AU coins are now considered to be MS and with each passing year the number goes up as commercial grading "evolves."

It won't happen but as soon as "price, rarity, eye appeal, and market conditions are removed from the "grading equation" my blind grandmother and everyone else will be able to look at the condition of preservation of a coin and come up with a decent, acceptable grade. Then they will need to add all the "fluff" to find out what it is worth. That is the realm of successful collectors/dealers.

 

I am curious @Insider if two coins had the same "fingerprint" as a couple of the really good counterfeits do how the system would have reacted?

Would have been cool to see how these two would have been viewed...

 

This would also require a grading standard that remained static.

 

I think technology these days would be able to tell each was a different coin due to the fact each would contain markings that are not common to the other coin. But each would also contain enough common markings (if struck by the same counterfeit die) to determine each are a counterfeit of the same lineage. Especially if a previous counterfeit of their lineage had already been analyzed by the system.