Slab Coins, The way to go.

I reported this auction to eBay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=330056537603&rd=1&rd=1
Interesting to see what they do. If it is not there for you to see perhaps they did the right thing.

 

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I doubt if the Secret Service would agree with you.

 

1965 Kennedy, PCGS SMS-70 DCAM a STUPENDOUSLY rare coin
So INCREDIBLY rare that ZERO grade higher! NONE!!!!!!!
"But as of the latest PCGS pop-reports, none grade higher than this, NONE! ZILCH!! NANO-NANO!!!!!!!! "

Okay, so can anyone tell me how they can grade higher than 70!!!!!
Did we change over to a 100 point system while I was asleep?

 

Actually that listing is quite ridicious. Anyone with printing capibility and a broken slab can do something like that.

 

My father used to tell me that one of the reasons he left the hobby more than 20 years ago was that he was disturbed by the flood of fake ancient coins into the market. This was before slabs and established third party authentication (although reputable coin dealers certainly authenticated coins).

This thread is pretty scary when you think about it, particularly for young collectors who may have to manuever in a world where you can't necessarily trust anything you see. I agree that fake slabs are easy, and of course we already have "fake slab companies" (need I name names?) and "fake dealers" (ahem, "as seen on TV").

Perhaps the course of digging into those treasure boxes and appreciating the history behind even one of those "20 for $1" coins is the way to go. I doubt that there would be too much market for counterfeit 10 Centime pieces, for example.

And as several of our veteran members point out, collecting knowledge is very powerful. We may wind up back in a "evaluate it yourself" mode if fake slabs follow fake coins.

 

For me, the slabs are a necessary evil since I'm more of a casual collector who doesn't want to maintain a laboratory of scales and testing equipment in an attempt to outwit the best of the counterfeiters in the world. There are many coins that I just will not purchase without the authentication and grading service the TPGs provide. This is also partly due to the fact that once I'm no longer around, there is a high probability that the family member assigned to liquidate the collection will not have the skill to know whether or not they are being cheated, and the slabbing of the more valuable coins will at least give them a decent shot at obtaining a fair price.

It's the 21st century now, and all of the deceit, corruption, and deception prevalent in the world has found this hobby. So it pays to protect yourself if you plan to spend significant sums on a coin, even if you crack it out afterward.

 

P.S. -- It wouldn't surprise me if some of the collectors who are the most confident in their ability to spot counterfeits own the most counterfeits.

 

Holster your weapon, son. There's not really anything to report to eBay here. It is made very clear that there is no coin and no slab and that it never existed. There is no deception going on. Anyone who bids is bidding on a picture of something that isn't real. I have better things to spend my money on, but obviously some people don't, and if they think they are bidding on an actual coin or slab, it is their own fault for not reading the auction. If someone lists an auction for a computer generated picture of a unicorn, it's just a picture, the unicorn doesn't exist and the seller should not have to remove the auction for that reason. People often post "joke" auctions, and some of them do very well. It's silly, no doubt, but not criminal.

 

And this thing has 11 bids already :hammer:

 

Maybe we need a way to 'slab' a coin without actually slabbing it.... I'm thinking thin plexy melted and shrunk around the coin, with one hard plastic end, kind of like a baggy, but thermally sealed and tamper proof.... Maybe I can explain in more detail if anybody likes the idea?

 

If it's true TPGs spend an average of 8 seconds authenticating and grading a coin maybe they're not even keeping up with now. The embossed mintmark was a new process/method that the ANA discovered in the early 80's. Whoever discovered it probably spent a bit more than 8 seconds looking.

 

When I started collecting there were no slabs, except Mint encased stuff. I had such disagreements with sellers, mostly about questionably cleaned coins, 'funny toned' coppers,' bright' silver halves and dollars that I developed a bad attitude about B+M dealers. They were opportunists, and outright liers. I will not buy an unslabbed coin anymore, either on line or at B+M dealers (or I won't spend much). But I am back to collecting and buying again. Someone will say buy the coin and not the slab, but I'll buy the coin AND the slab. I've got enough cleaned "gems" thanks.

 

8 seconds?

You mean, like the amount of time you're supposed to stay on a bull in a riding competition, that 8 seconds?

Now I am really scared.

Mcgrover, I'm sorry that your experience with B+M dealers was so bad. The one we use isn't anything like that; but I do agree that there have been some real "winners" out there.

 

There are three B+M dealers near me. Only one is worth going to. Too small a sample to draw any conclusions.

 

For abilities to manufacture counterfiet coins today, just think how we now can operate on an eye with lazers, make imatation hearts that work, go to the moon and so many things that are not even released to the masses. Making a pile of 1916D Mercury Dimes would be a piece of cake if someone really wanted to and from what I've heard lately, they have.

 

They have probably made the conterfeit slabs to go with them.

 

In that case, why are we all collecting coins? If counterfeiting is really that ubiquitous, the hobby is ruined. No matter how much we admire a coin, we are always going to have the sickening feeling that it may be a fake. Humans have a genius for creating wonderful things, then ruining them. Computers were developed, giving us undreamed of capabilities and joys. Then came viruses, spam, phishing, identity theft, spyware, etc. It's always the same. Humanity launches a great positive, then the negatives show up.

Hell, after reading today's thread, I'm thinking seriously of throwing my entire coin collection into a river.

 

um..... which river, and how far out? (Should I wear my rubber boots?)

 

The River Styx. But you wouldn't know about that, would you? I guess they didn't teach mythology in the third grade.

 

Maybe one way to prevent this would be to buy only coins slabbed before say 12/07/06. There seem to be millions of them and likely few have got counterfeits into slabs so far. Doubt if the TPG's would be too keen on this suggestion and probably would take giant steps in counterfeit detection to prevent something like this from happening.