So I Went to China... (Black)

Long Story Short: I bought 68 Coins from a market seller, (at a very low price $0.38 per coin) and so far most are fakes!

On my recent trip to China I stumbled across a guy who was selling coins at a local market. Now his coins were in a nice holder, and he was the only person selling high end coins that may have been worth anything. Some other people in this market were also selling coins, but worthless things like, 1990 Lincoln Cent, or a 2005 Nickel...

But when I opened this folder of coins, I immediately saw a Peace Dollar. Now I am not any expert on coin collecting, maybe I am just a novice, but I asked him how much for the coin. He wanted CNY 5 ($0.81) for the coin. Knowing the coin values, and seeing a Draped Bust coin, I told my girlfriend (who's chinese) to ask him how much for the entire book of 68 coins. He wanted CNY 160 ($25.78) for everything. I immediately took the offer.

Upon reaching home I noticed some of these coins were blatant fakes (US Coins so Far)! Silver coins were sticking to magnets, some of the reverse sides were misaligned or positioned the wrong direction, and one coin (Trade Dollar) had a date of 1817.

I did however find 4 coins, that I submitted to PCGS to see if they are definitely fake as I couldn't tell from tests and pictures online.

The coins I submitted to PCGS were:

1. 1799 Draped Bust Dollar
2. 1846 Seated Liberty Dollar
3. 1922 Peace Dollar
4. 1896 Morgan Dollar

Considering I bought these coins roughly for $0.38, it's not really a loss but more of a learning experience!

Here are the pictures of the coins inside the original book.

NOTE: I did discard some of the blatant US Coin fakes in the book before returning to USA. Didn't want to run into any issues with big brother....

I will keep this thread updated on the other coins, as well as the 4 coins I submitted to PCGS!​

 

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Sadly, I can with 99.9% confidence guarantee you the results. Did you consider WHY would a draped bust or no stars SL dollar would appear in China? These coins never circulated that direction, so finding one in China, ignoring the obvious of their notorious fake industry and being found with other fakes, would be a 1 in a billion chance. I believe you would have a better chance of hitting the Powerball TWICE than these being genuine.

 

Yea unfortunately there is essentially no chance any of them will be genuine. Its possible that some of the older coins could be silver, although that isn't even too likely given how cheap they were sold for.

 

Albums of fakes like that are a pretty common novelty item in Asia. Not really meant to fool anyone, just curiosities. I have a few full of replica Chinese coins of the past 100 years. I think the guy wanted $20 per album and I talked him down to $5. Fun to have since the real pieces would cost a modest fortune, but not worth the pot metal they're struck on as a numismatic item.

 

*If* they are quality fakes you might be able to sell the to a Black Cabinet collector.

 

lol.. im sorry you went where looking for coins.. , china's the fraud capital of the world counterfeiting is legal there..lol

 

nope, nada, nil, nothing

 

what does "...(Black)" in the title of this thread mean? That you had blacked out then bought these fakes?

 

If you bought 68 coins, and there were only four that you couldn't immediately identify as fakes, which do you think is more likely:

1) The seller with albums full of fake coins just happened to include four real ones, including two that were worth many times the price of the entire lot?

2) Four of the 68 fakes were "good enough" to fool a novice?

I'm reminded of the optimistic child who got a pile of manure for Christmas, and dove into it with glee, exclaiming, "There must be a pony under here somewhere!"

 

take really good pics of thm and pm them to me or post them here id like to print them to show to my clubb

 

That sounds so nefarious.

 

At the very least PCGS is grading the coins. I have a bunch of the world coins, and it's fun to look at them even if they are fakes.

Kaosleeroy108, if you would like, I can mail you some of the coins at no cost.

 

Federal law now makes it illegal to sell any counterfeit coin that is not marked "COPY".

Chris

 

Or not.

 

.

 

Well, you certainly did your part to support the counterfeiting industry in China.

 

Look, I think it's cool that you/we will get to see the results, even if we do think they're fake. Post closeups of the PCGS coins when they get back to you.

 

Sounds good!

 

Unfortunately, you've just turned those $0.38 "coins" into $25.75 (estimated) coins.
Per coin:
- ship to PCGS ~$1.25
- sumission fee ($10) $2.50 per coin
- economy grading fee: $20 per coin
- return shipping (~$8 as I expect them to be fake) $2.00 per coin