I saw this auction ending soon. Plenty of warning signs - mislabeled, low price, says item is in U.S. but seller has very poor command of the English language. I'm wondering if these look fake to you? I'd be interested in the half cent. Seller's pics.
I'm not much on fakes but considering the heavy wear on these, someone would have had to have gone through a lot of trouble making fakes look real. The large cent looks like a dug coin someone found with a metal detector.
Here's this week's quota of (Chinese) fake half cents, large cents, and Indians. I don't think they bother to counterfeit Poor's and Fair's.
You could make a lot of nice lockets and bracelets with those. There HAS to be another way to market fakes. (legally)
I also thought it would be strange to make fakes that don't look good, but people always say not to put anything past them.
It does seem unlikely to me as well that someone would go to so much trouble to fake lower grade coins by making them look aged, heavily circulated and possibly fresh out of the ground...and then sell them for a "low price"....but as Hiddendragon suggests...anything is possible. By the way, how low a price are we talking about...slightly or considerably under the norm?? And I hope they are on e-bay with their guaranteed refund policy if you are not satisfied with what arrives at your door.
I agree even lower graded coins can and are faked, this looks like a lot of damaged coins. The 184X expecially has just been clobbered into uncollectibility. TBH all four would reside in a junk pile along with other non-collectible coins if I own them, (and I do own a few like them from group lots, I give them away to kids).
The OP coins look real, but I would pass on those. If you want an 1832 half cent, you can get one you'll actually like in a much higher grade for not a lot more money than this one probably will cost you, and you'll be able to sell it more easily in the future.
They ended up selling for $7.75 plus $3 shipping. I thought the half cent would be worth more than that even in this condition. I bid but didn't want to go too high, and lost.
Yes, cheap, but a painful, frustrating way to make money, with every potential buyer whinging about the price due to the condition, trying to beat you down, blah, blah, blah. There's easier ways to make profits.
That's what I was thinking. I'd keep the half cent, which I don't have one of, and sell the other three, which I have, and probably break even and still have the coin I wanted. They were advertised as being Hong Kong coins which is why i clicked on it because that's an area of interest for me, but I'm sure that's why they went so cheap.
