Has anyone submitted a KNOWN counterfeit?

There are many aspects of the hobby with which I am not familiar.

One is about what people do when they have a piece they KNOW is a counterfeit. Has anyone here ever submitted a known fake to a grading company? I mean, not to confirm the authenticity (which is a big part of the service that a TPG provides, of course), but to purposely get the coin back in a body bag with the tag marked "Counterfeit?"

Is this a thing at all?

I know it's considered a waste of money by many, but do some people in the hobby actually collect "certified counterfeits," or more precisely, "(fake) coins in body bags?"

Below is one somebody recently submitted and got back as a fake. The owner's not "collecting" fakes like I describe above, rather he IS trying to warn people about a certain group of sellers passing off these fakes of rare South Korean trial/pattern coins over at eBay.

 

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No, but if I were I would likely do it with ICG for the obvious cost savings. I did submit one to them that came back counterfeit and the did bobybag the coin for me. The other thing about ICG is they are very responsive. Your reasoning is sound and I believe they would be happy to oblige if you told them what you were doing this for.

 

I haven't and I wouldn't spend money just to warn people on ebay. Ebay doesn't care about counterfeits. What interests me more are the ones a TPG certifies as genuine when they aren't. @Jack D. Young has found and published tons of these.

 

To clarify: The person who sent the example piece above believed the seller's item description that it was a genuine trial coin. The collector is assembling a world-coin year-set (1965), to include patterns and circulation strikes, all in graded holders. He didn't know it was fake.

I am asking about whether people purposely sent in coins they ALREADY KNOW to be fake, in order to get them back in the body bag.

 

Can't say I see the point in spending money for someone to confirm what you already know. It would be another thing entirely if you think it's more likely than not that it's real, and you want confirmation of that fact; that seems worth the price of the service. Otherwise... just seems like a waste of time and money.

As a warning to other collectors? Well what's to stop someone else from just taking it out of the "body bag" and passing it off as real again? Too expensive just to make a point you can make for free: caveat emptor (may the buyer beware). If you want to permanently keep someone else from being fooled by the counterfeit, destroy it or in some way permanently mark it as "copy" or "not genuine" or something of the sort. Or keep it in your collection to keep it from getting out in the world again. A "body bag" from a TPG is not permanent, because it can easily just be taken out of it.

I've only had one coin I've ever submitted (to ANACS) come back as counterfeit; oddly it's a coin that would have been only worth about $15 if it was real, so I wonder why anyone bothered to fake it (practice maybe, or maybe it was just a copy, not properly stamped as such, but never meant to fool anyone). I still have it in my collection, labeled as a copy.

 

I sent in a submission batch to ANACS last year that had two trade dollars that I suspected. One came back bad and the other good but details.

 

As part of a 5-coin submission to ANACS in 2015, I had a 1934 Washington quarter with an odd large lump next to IGWT that I thought was an error. It came back unslabbed and marked “counterfeit” but no explanation. I still have it but sometimes I wonder why I keep it. I guess because it’s the only counterfeit I have (that I know of) and it is fun to show.

I think most people submit suspecting there is a chance that something may be counterfeit but crossing their fingers and toes that it isn’t, rather than the opposite. That’s what I did. Looking back, I feel I did not do enough homework on the coin before I submitted…Spark

 

I wish that PCGS would slab counterfeits and show it on the label. I can't think of a reason not to. They already have the coin in their hands.
An honest person will leave it in the slab. It won't matter to someone that is not honest. Some folks collect counterfeits.

 

Any and every counterfeit that does not have "COPY" or similar clearly displayed should be destroyed. If somebody wants to collect them, they should be required to mark them similarly so they cannot be moved on as real at a later date.

 

Well this is just great. Now we have to worry about the Chinese selling their counterfeit coins and unscrupulous coin dealers selling their genuine low grade no value coins in PGS counterfeit body bags. How about we use oxymoron as the reference for these coins.

 

I agree. If the fake is in a slab, it will at least take a little more work for the owner to pass it off as real (if they are so inclined). And for certified fake collectors, a "body bag" is just a flip ... the coin is easily removed and can be replaced with anything. Mike

 

I make a distinction between historical contemporary counterfeits that were intended to fool the marketplace, and counterfeits intended to fool collectors. I think TPGs should certify the former and stamp COPY on the latter before returning to the submitter. You'll get into a gray area of course, because for example there are tons of fake Canadian $2 toonies out there intended for circulation and not collectors, but I wouldn't certify them either.

 

I respectfully disagree. A counterfeit is a counterfeit and they are illegal without having proper marking. Anything submitted should be returned with a mark. I'm a little surprised that they aren't already required to do so, seems they would have that obligation being they are "dis-authenticating" the coin and know it to be a fake.

 

I have never known of anyone getting in trouble over a contemporary
counterfeit. They are a bit special and the law don't care. Most of them are worth much more than the real thing. Below is a good example.

The TPDs can't mark or damage any coin. It is not their property. They will return the coin to you in the same condition they received it and for good reason. The owner of the coin may wish to walk it back to the dealer they bought it from and the dealer may want to walk it back to where they got it from. That's the way it works. If you alter the coin, you own it and the dealer will not take it back.

 

I agree the TPGs need to be a better partner in culling counterfeits, but authentication is already an element of their business models. Their obligation ends when the property owner gains receipt upon return.

They have no authority to alter someone else's property unless specifically instructed to do so by the property owner him/herself and it is a service that is paid for.

Notification of non-authenticity is all they do as a reason not only to deny slabbing but also to keep your money for effort expended. I’ve never received a refund for any coin submitted but was denied encapsulation, and I would be madder than a hornet if my property was subjected to unauthorized alteration.

 

I guess legally they can't "deface" someone else's property; I just wish there was something more they could do for the obvious Chinese crap, which is illegal to knowingly distribute or sell without COPY. I'm sure there's a decent percentage of people out there who submit, get told they got screwed, can't get a refund, so they put it on ebay and try to recoup some of their loss.

But I disagree with your disagreement on the contemporary counterfeits. This one is 1861 type 101, and there are also 102 and 103. https://www.seateddimevarieties.com/cf_date/1861_101page.htm. When one like this is known and documented, I think a TPG could slab it. And as @ldhair says, they are often worth more than their real counterpart.

 

I hope we don't have to figure out the distinction between "real fakes" and "fake fakes" lol.

I mean, yeah, there does seem to be a difference between counterfeits meant to fool coin collectors, and contemporary counterfeits meant to fool people at a time they were meant to just be spent. Some of the latter have even fooled TPGs from time to time.

One famous example I can think of is the "Micro O" Morgan dollars." Interesting case, because 1899-O with "Micro O" is a genuine variety, but 1896-O, 1900-O, and 1902-O Micro O are counterfeits, believed to have been made in the 1940's, at a time when a silver dollar had less than a dollar's worth of silver in them, so it was worth counterfeiting them, not to fool collectors, but to be spent. Oddly these counterfeits actually have too much silver in them, and are about 94% silver, and also have some lead in them. PCGS at one time thought these were a legitimate variety until metallic testing them proved they were counterfeits. Some people still collect these, because well, people will collect anything, and contemporary counterfeits can themselves be collectibles.

https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1899-o-1-micro/87260

 

I was thinking of that exact example. The Chinese may have counterfeited these counterfeits! Maybe knowingly or accidentally. I wonder if anyone has seen a fake of these fakes. This article speculates that the 1894-O was made circa 1902-1904. The article is a bit confusing (to me). https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/ngc-identifies-first-1894-i-morgan-dollar-fake.html

 

As I recall, a few Micro Os were counterfeits likely made when Morgan dollars were still being minted... other Micro-Os were likely made as recently as the 1940's (I swear I remember reading that somewhere, but can't seem to find any mention of later Micro-Os). But all of these were made to be spent, not to fool collectors. Until about the early 1960's it was still worth doing such.

It's entirely possible that the fake Micro O's were mistakes by the counterfeiters. New Orleans was rather notorious for their coins being of lower quality quite often; possibly why the fakes were made as if they were O-minted, so any inconsistencies wouldn't be looked at too closely.

(Not to be confused with 1880-O & 1899-O Micro O, which are legitimate varieties.)

I don't know if someone's making counterfeits of counterfeits lol... I mean, what's really the difference I guess. (And rather ironically, some people may be making fakes of coins they don't know are already fake lol!) Those are being made to fool collectors though, similar to people gold-plating "no cents" Liberty nickels to fool people into thinking... they were made to fool people back in the 1880's I guess. (How many no cents nickels were ever actually gold plated at the time is debateable... I'm sure it was done to some degree, but not nearly as often as rumors would have you believe.)

 

Some forgers of ancient coins became famous because of the quality of their work. Carl Becker of Germany (1772-1830) was one. There are books about him and his coins. The coins are actively collected and expensive. Some are displayed in museums. When he died, the Berlin Museum acquired his dies and used them to strike off-metal souvenirs. For example, dies for aurei (normally in gold) would be used to strike base-metal coins. And yeah, there are fake Beckers in the proper metals. Mike