A friend posted the 1929 and I found the 1914, both from the same seller. I dug deeper and pulled up images of the genuine examples: Not even close! I sent a pretty curt message to the seller and he ended both auctions... Can't wait to see what else he has to list... Best, Jack
Here are some close-ups of the two dates involved. They are raw, but I'm quite sure that they are genunine. The two "long distance shots of the counterfeits don't look very convincing to me.
I thought that at first, too, but I think it's just the direction of the light. Turn your screen upside down, and watch @johnmilton's incuse examples turn into relief designs!
Notice that even the font (lettering and numbers style) is wrong on the fakes. I have a long background in editing, proofreading, and printed materials production, but even so, anyone can learn a great deal just from examining the differences in the labels genuine vs. fake. And of course, if the labels match, then your work has just begun! There are many convincing fakes where the packaging is much more authentic-looking than on these totally amateurish examples. Kind regards, George
Ya Know, I think nowadays that would add a premium Chula Vista CA is getting to be a bad location to buy from on eBay, the package would probably come china post.
Makes you wonder what may happen with slabs in 40 years, let alone a hundred from now. Will we have airtite slabs made out of AI designed materials, or does the public go back to raw coins?
Making the optimistic assumption that there'll be a "public" in 40 or 100 years... Seems to me that faking a convincing slab is an easier problem than faking a convincing coin. I think it's possible that slabs will become obsolete, with AI-assisted identification and evaluation of individual coins providing more assurance than a plastic slab. TPGs might live on as registries and market-makers, but I have my doubts; AI's going to have huge impacts there as well.
