Hello. I introduced myself elsewhere, but I'm an author and I am working on a new thriller with a protagonist who is a coin dealer. I am here to learn about coin collecting and dealing in general, and to ask a few questions, some of which might be very strange, or very ignorant. I hope you'll be willing to bear with me. First thing I'd like to know is are there specific rules or laws regulating the buying and selling of coins in the US? Aside from the obvious ones about not trading in stolen goods. Second, is there any way of tracking the sales history of a coin? Does a coin ever have a provenance like a piece of art or an antique, or is it just word of honor? If you are a coin dealer, has anyone ever tried to pass a fake off to you? How did they do it? What is the best fake you've ever seen? What is the worst fake you've ever seen? Thanks in advance!
sarah: I'm not a real dealer, but I have sold some coins. In order of your questions: First: no specific laws that I am aware of, except for the fact that some states charge sales tax on sales. 2: Yes, for certain rarities there is a provenance attached to the coins. Some TPG'ers (Third Party Graders, who 'slab' (encase & grade a coin) will notate the coin's history. 3: Not as a dealer, but as a collector, I have seen fakes in dealers' showcases. I do happen to own the world's worse 1901 S Barber quarter fake. It is so bad that it can be seen with the naked eye. Someone took a regular date and changed the last digit to a one. I love it! If it were genuine it would be worth about $6000. One dealer had a fake 1896 S and 1913 S Barber quarters in his showcase. A collector bought them and sent them to a TPG'er and had them returned as 'added mintmarks'. The grading service saved him many thousands of dollars, they were both high grades. Best fake: I guess the above 1896 S and 1913 S quarters. Along with a 1923 S Standing Liberty quarter that I currently own. Date was changed from a 1928 S. Really neat. Worst: the 1901 S that I described above. Good luck.
Welcome to the forum. Researching a book here, you are likely to get many opinions and a lot of advice. Remember, no one here is an expert but many have lots of knowledge to share anyway. A great source of information is always the reference books that collectors use like the Red book. I recently read a book that contained a lot of history about both the mint and coin collecting called "Illegal Tender" by David Tripp. There are many others that would be helpful in the bibliography. Many fakes are coming out of Asia these days. A bad fake is where someone tries to take a 1946-D Mercury dime and change the first "4" into a "1" so that it becomes a 1916-D a much more valuable year. Some fakes only experts can tell from genuine coins. Most fakes are pretty amature-ish. Only extremely valuable coins would have any kind of documentation and maybe even high definition close-up photos. Coins are mostly certified and "slabbed" by coin grading companies like NGC, PCGS and such. The put them in airtite type plastic containers with labels and the each have a grade that determines their value. I suppose people could try and switch the plastic container but most good coin collects buy the coin not the container. One of our moderators "GD" has a wealth of knowledge in regard to coins of many types. He might be able to help you more directly. Good luck and I hope I've been of some help.
The best fakes I've seen are replicas made by Slavey Petrov. He sells his stuff as replicas which is perfectly fine. It's some others though where the problems arise as they have sold his stuff as authentic and he dosen't (didn't?) mark his stuff as reproductions so it's been very easy pass his stuff off as authentic since they're so good. Info - http://rg.ancients.info/slavey More Photos - http://www.ancients.info/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/511 Slavey's site - http://www.slaveycoins.com There are tons of bad fakes out there and it's usually quite easy to tell with them once you've been around coins for a short while. General info on fake ancients... http://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/index.php http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?board=9.0 As far as US fakes I'm sure someone here will have all kinds of info.
Welcome to the forum. For your questions: There are virtually no rules, laws, regulations, etc. when it comes to coins. They do not have serial numbers, model numbers, etc. Some of the very, very rare ones are well stored in places for the coins protection. Coins are possibly similar to many other hobbies with even less controls. Although the Mint states quantities minted, I suspect even those are only extimates. No one reallly knows how many have been distroyed, melted, thrown in lakes, rivers, etc. No one knows how many have been lost in parks, forests, sand dunes, beaches. No one knows how many are in jars, cans, boxes in peoples houses. In reality, not much is really known about most coins. I'm not a dealer, just a collector and have been one for well over 60 years. I do know that many people are presently making a fortune on this latest coin collecting craze created by the USMint with this massive variety of coins. I suspect this may eventually crash as with the massive variety of stamps, Beanie Babies, Hot Wheel Cars. Another problem lately is the flood of counterfeits being found. Not only the coins but the slabs too are being copiedd and this will increase as the amount of coin collectors increase. As to those counterfiets, I had one half dollar made of lead but gave it away. It was by far the worst attempt at a fake possible. For reference material I would suggest you just stay here and read all the posts, ask questions as much as possible. Remember there is no such thing as a dumb question. We all learn something from all questions.
One law pertaining to the movement of coins. The Director of the US mint has issued an order banning the export of more than $5 worth of pennies/nickels. A violation of this order is punishable by a $10,000 fine and/or jailtime (don't remember the number of years). Would be funny to read a book where the antagonist is brought down because he had too much change in his pocket.
A good methodology to go about learning about fakes is to search for key dates. Every key date has it's own history of fakes. As an alternative, you can search eBay for raw coins worth more than $500 and the vast majority of them will probably be fake (especially if they ship from China).
Each country had it’s own import/export laws Say my brother buys an ancient Persian coin in Iraq for $3 and sends it to me. We just broke the law, because (I could be wrong) it’s illegal to import coins from Iraq. Even if that type of coin can be dug up anywhere in the Middle East. If I turn around and sell it on eBay for 3$ as a Turkish coin, the sell is legal. I won’t have to provide proof of where the coin came from… not that this has happened.
The best fake coin I've ever seen is the Omega St. Gaudens $20 gold piece http://www.anacs.com/(A(_onBPoAjyAE...icle.aspx?ID=20&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 Probably one of the best modern counterfeit coins ever made, it fooled almost everyone, including some of the best known collectors in the business as well as secret service and FBI officials. I saw one sell as an Omega counterfeit, perfectly legal, in a Vegas coin store for nearly twice what an original would have brought (not the 'Ultra High Releif). As for the wrost fakes...just use the search on this site and you'll see some of the ones brought to the attention of others by members here. There are some decent ones, and a lot of really bad, obvious fakes. Guy~
There is a law that applies to counterfeits - if a dealer sells you a coin as genuine and it is indeed counterfeit - he has to refund your money, no time limit on returns. But you will have to be able to prove that it is in fact the exact same coin he sold you. As for the best fakes, as mentioned, the gold Omega counterfeits would be at or near the top. Another group would be the 1896, 1900 and 1902 micro O Morgan dollars. Both of these groups of coins were made of genuine gold and silver. The Morgans even contained silver of a higher fineness than the genuine coins. And both groups of these counterfeit coins were so good that they fooled even the experts for decades. Some are still being discovered even today. Then of course you could also consider the fake gold coins of just about every nation that were produced from the '30's thru the '60's. They had entire factories set up in the middle east turning these coins out by the millions. The coins were all made of genuine gold of the correct fineness and weight. The coins were nearly indistinguishable from genuine coins. They were so good that even British goverment was fooled by them. They even handed out the coins to fliers as part of their survival gear during WWII. Those coins also turn up in large numbers even today. As for the worst - take your pick. They number in the millions - tens of millions. And some are so bad that even a novice can detect them. And yes, I have had coin dealers and private individuals try to sell me counterfeit coins. And I would venture that most of the time they didn't even know that the coins were counterfeit. I would hazard a guess that there are nearly as many counterfeits or altered coins held in private collections as there are genuine coins. And I guarantee you that 99% of the owners are either not aware of it or would deny it. One other comment, the value of a coin has little to do with it being counterfeited. Every single coin there that has ever been has been counterfeited - even the cheapest.
