Counterfeits and The Ethics of Owning Them

A fake, fake?

 

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Not if I make it. It is original.

 

MeowtheKitty, posted: "Would it be more PC to call them replicas instead?"

Moo, Quack, and Bark see how Meow the kitten is posting! Perhaps Meow has grown up to be a fine Cat.

 

Moo, quack, and bark? What kind of critter have you grown up to be?

 

I choose to display the real deal. My OCD kicks in when coins look completely out of place, as in an uncirculated coin in the middle of an F/EF set. Same goes for slabbed or unslabbed sets. If I have an album displaying my coins and 2 of the whole set are slabbed and the rest in a Dansco, the slabbed coins will get paroled.

 

Are those some Ron Landis?
Please don't tell me that you paid 5.99 a piece?

 

Nope. I got them for under $30 each.

Daniel Carr via Jared Grove.

At only 500 minted, these are significantly more scarce than the originals.

Z

 

I believe that it is time to revisit this>>> I can think of a few that should be 1st in line .

 

Hey Paddy, Look up a definition of "Counterfeit."

 

After reading through this thread, I actually had to look it up myself. I was under the assumption that the word was specific to creating unauthorized copies of money, in which case adding a "D" to a legitimate dime wouldn't technically be counterfeiting. However, the definition includes "Making an imitation of something valuable", so I guess it applies after all.

 

I purchased a fake coin. I called the SS in OKC to report it. I was told they are not interested in counterfeits unless the values are over $100,000. During the discussion, the agent stated there are over 60,000 fakes coming into the US from China every month, no way to keep up with it. He told me to keep the coin. I got my money back from the seller.

ICG has a certification and slab service for counterfeit "educational" coins.

If it sounds too good to be true..... get a receipt and a return purchase promise, take a cell phone picture of the guy, his driver's license, and car tag so you can hunt him down and get your money back. LOL

 

Here's a contemporary counterfeit Seated Half I have. A genuine 1843 half was used for the mold, this one seems to be cast in antimony or tin. Probably Civil War era.

I purchased this one at a low price for the historical value and let's be honest, no one is going to be fooled by this.

 

In Japan there are 参考品銭 sanko hin zeni, literally "reference coins" which are copies of rare cast cash coins made for collectors. Everyone knows what they are and they're pretty easy to spot, so no real concerns with them passing as real amongst collectors who usually use them to fill a hole in a set. They're a little off, but not as bad as the cheap Chinese jewelry coins that are produced by the boatload.

 

I own two, purchased in my naive phase of collecting years ago. An eastern European seller on eBay, but the coins shipped from, you guessed it, China. It was too good to be true and I was, an idiot. But I've kept them as a lesson to myself and clearly labeled the two as counterfeit.

The two immediate clues are the examples don't sound silver and they are grossly underweight.

Puerto Rico, 1895, 20¢, Counterfeit, 4.67g (Should be 5g. weight if authentic)


Puerto Rico, 1896, 40¢, Counterfeit, 7g. (Should be 10g. weight if authentic)



Lesson learned!

 

I think he was referring to the "To counterfeit is death"

 

Oh understood... totally

 

It's absolutely ok to keep a counterfeit in your collection, for educational purposes if nothing else, as long as they are identified and marked as such. I don't own any counterfeit coins, but I do have a few counterfeit stamps. They are clearly marked as such in my album...and a side note that I put on my album page about how to tell the difference between a real one and a counterfeit. (Cretan Trident issues of 1899, BTW.)