Artificial toned Franklin Halves

Great what next undetectable way to turn unc's to proof's? No wonder Doug stopped buying coins...

 

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If that was NT it would have been more like $400. Too bad it wasn't at least the micro 'S' variety.

 

Agree. Especially that date too. Blah

 

Yes, we Have been working on this for the last few years.

 

I've been seeing this more and more lately. It seems mercury dimes and franklin halves are the favorite targets. It is pretty easy to spot since the chemical is essentially painted on. Any clear image will give it away.

 

I have known about it for more than 20 years, and agree it is easier to spot, as it does take an artist not to 'frost ' over the line, but as you might expect, some are so anxious to push 'buy' they don't consider the possibility. Since it is mainly a 'white' process, when they try with copper proof cents, it is more noticeable than silver.

 

here is a snip from PCGS :

"To recreate this frost, some coins are chemically treated on the devices, often with mild acids. PCGS also has seen some other coins, usually Proofs, which appear to have had their devices lightly sandblasted or acid-etched to imitate frosting. Other substances also are used to imitate frosting-among them auto-body putty, as mentioned in the previous section-but these will usually "dip off' in commercial dips or certain organic solvents. These treatments are applied most commonly to silver coins, but gold, nickel, and even copper coins also are sometimes seen with imitation frosted devices.

 

The problem with grandiose claims in the context of your other posts is that they simply destroy whatever credibility you may have presented for yourself.

$2500-$25000 face in Franklins "every time" that you found circulated Franklins at your bank is essentially impossible. That would mean your bank happens to have 2-25 BAGS of Franklins whenever you find at least one Franklin at your bank.

As for the second half of your claim, you're essentially saying that whenever you find a Morgan from the bank, you find 500-10000 of them, which would imply that, on at least one occasion, you found 10% of the Binion hoard at your local bank, just sitting there waiting for someone to show up with $10000 and ask for 10000 one-dollar coins. Oh, and somehow none of those 10000 coins were Ikes, Peace Dollars, Seateds, Trade Dollars, etc.

And, if you did have that much success at your bank, the branch manager would notice that someone is regularly acquiring 50000-100000% of their monthly half dollar holdings in a single visit.

Lie less often, and you'll find people start to care more about what you have to say.

 

problem being, you didn't understand what I meant by this. Everytime I have ever found a franklin halve, I find it in sums of this. The trick is, I never found franklin halves in circulation, so I never found it in sums of 2500-25000. I'm not lying, Im just manipulating the words. Besides, it was just a joke.

TBH, that was quite harsh and rude, and it makes you look foolish on your part.

 

So, your intent remained one to deceive. I don't feel that my comments were denigrating, since I merely responded directly to what you said. It's not as though I misquoted or misinterpreted your comments. In fact, since you claim that I don't understand what you meant, here's your quote again:

Now, in the context of your two comments, you've never found a Franklin half at your bank. However, without your statement that it was a joke, it's unfair to assume you'd just be making up random stories.What if someone read the thread up to your comment and decided "Oh, they can't be that rare, I'll deposit them in the bank." Yes, a far-fetched likelihood, but on par with your comment, I think.

 

It's a possibility. If you think about it this way, if someone decided it wasn't rare or worth keeping, that could potentially go to someone else and spark interest in numismatics to another person. Chain reaction.

 

Yes...I suppose that would a positive reason for lying to people and the ultimate result being that someone unknowingly gave away their valuables. I mean...if we are looking for a silver lining.

 

Just looking for the good side to things...

 

So how far away do you think we are to counterfeits that are not distinguishable from the real coins?

 

In some ways...I wonder if we are already there. Some of those new counterfeits from China are very convincing. I wonder if there are some floating around out there we can't identify.

 

Some have passed convincingly for a long time because of their quality. The only reason that they get caught sometimes is that they flood the market and raise suspicion. Just look at the omega man coins. I would think that if he only made a couple of dozen, they would be traded as genuine pieces today.

As much I hate to admit it, this is exactly what grading services are for. They know die parings and markers that average collectors would spend years learning. I know a couple of former NGC graders who specialized in Morgan dollars who could actually name the year simply by seeing a portion of the reverse. This kind of knowledge only comes from seeing tens of thousands of coins day after day. They would spot these modern fakes, but very experienced collectors and many dealers would not.

 

Now, here's a philosophical (and somewhat jurisprudence related) question:

If the counterfeits are good enough to fool TPGs, and cheap enough to produce below face, how do we know that they aren't already in circulation? What if the US decides to pay off China's treasury notes with Chinese counterfeits recovered from circulation?