Do You Have a Black Cabinet?

Most of us who have been collecting coins for a while know full well that we probably have had fake coins or currency in our collections. What to do with them when we find out that we do? For many years I either threw them out or put them in a junk box for the little ones to go through. Eventually I realized that some of these may have re-entered the marketplace and fooled others. I could have gone back to tossing them but then read about the "Black Cabinets" or boxes where such coins are labelled and kept as a kind of reminder to be careful out there. So I started to display them (fortunately only a few, thus far) but away from my main collection in a, if not quite black but very dark brown cabinet box. In each case I have had experienced collectors tell me why the coin was phony and what to look for, things that I would never have otherwise noticed. "Experience runs an expensive school...", so to speak.

Anyway I thought I would ask others what they do when they discover a phony numismatic item (long after one could return it). Do you have a Black Cabinet and if so could you show us yours? A separate folder, tray, cigar box or whatever? Thanks and maybe all of us could learn something to help us not fill up that part of our collection.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Nope, any fake coins that have crossed my path I end up sending back for a refund. Two ended up in the trash, but I was a teen in the 90s & they were not ancients.

 

I don't think (I hope!) I've been unfortunate enough to buy a modern fake so far, so no sin bin for me yet. I do have a couple of contemporary fakes in my collection, a fouree core and an irregular Claudian As, but they are both so obviously fake and marked as such that nobody would be mistaken should my coins be found post me.

 

I have several ancient fourees and if they are ancient in time I don't put them in the fakes Black cabinet as if they circulated back then I consider them to be validly ancient coins. I have had modern fakes that were plated and those I keep separate.

 

Your cabinet has more of a mahogany color to it.

 

That's because I am not 100% certain that they are all fakes.

 

I agree with this but do believe that ancient unofficial coins still need to be labeled as such and sold only to people who understand their status.

 

Absolutely, I agree. They need to be discounted at the point of sale, not because they are not ancient coins but because much of the collecting community values them less. Or let me put it this way. When somebody offers one for sale the coin is worth almost as much as one from the official mint. When one tries to resell it they suddenly become problematic. Anyone perusing the coin selling websites will discover this and if one becomes a seller there is an obligation to point this out (and not in the fine print). Also in my early collecting days I was taken advantage of by a dealer who introduced me to ancient fourees, assuring me of their antiquity and good value. It turned out that some of them were modern copies and by the time I found out about this the place had closed. That old experience school can charge a heavy tuition. I don't mind owning and displaying ancient fourees. They carry an interesting story of their own behind them but they do not carry the resale value of those from the official mints.

 

I had about 2000 fakes at one point. Everything from Slaveys to Ready’s, christodoulous, Becker’s and crappy casts. I sold most of the collectible forgeries, still have about 500 miscellaneous things left.

At various times I’ve posted composite photos of certain things online. Somewhere is a photo of a series of Mithrapata and Pericles fakes from my black cabinet. There’s a photo of about 25 fake Athens tets somewhere. There are also others and many single photos I’ve used to illustrate various forgeries over the years.

CNG has perhaps the largest black cabinet around. It’s probably 7500-10000 items.


Barry Murphy

 

I know of the one on Forum Ancient but are there any others available for the public to peruse the list on line?

 

forgerynetwork.com

 

I honestly don’t recall what I have and haven’t illustrated or where. Forum, Facebook, Moneta-l, CFDL, Ancients.info and a few other places over the last 20+ years.

barry

 

I used to have a nicely displayed black cabinet. One evening when hosting a fairly raucous party at home that included a good cross section of the low life of my city, many unknown to me, someone nicked them all, along with an unopened bottle of Absolut. Wonder what they fenced them for.

 

One of those serendipitous happenings where the fence got swindled.

 

I live in Colorado Springs and collect ancient coins. The few fakes I have purchased I take to the ANA office here in the Springs and donate them to be used with their summer counterfeit coin class.

 

The only fakes that really interest me are the ones that have fooled museum curators or well known auctioneers of ancient coins. Hard to get, but there is a special feeling of wicked pleasure that goes with the acquisition of each one of them. They are the crown pieces of my Black Cabinet.

 

Sounds like a guilty pleasure to me.

 

Why should I feel guilty? They are generalists and I am a specialist. I can only distinguish fakes of certain areas. A museum curator who is responsible for the whole range of Ancient Coinages cannot be expected to be able to distinguish a very well made forgery bequeathed or sold to the Museum under circumstances that give no reason to doubt it. Also, some dealers, by necessity generalists themselves, who are too sure of their "eye" or have no time to check their consignments more thoroughly, sometimes offer in their auctions either well documented fakes like Caprara, Becker and Christodoulos or, other, more dangerous, unrecorded ones. The really difficult part of the game is to be able to acquire these coins for one's own collection of forgeries. And I am sure the reasons for which the owners do not want to part with them are obvious to all of us.

 

Would you share some that you’ve acquired? I would love to see some!
The only ones I own are just good enough to fool a middle-aged amateur schlub

 

I would be very pleased to do so but it will have to be in February as i am now traveling away from my Black Cabinet and I do not have a photographic record of it in my laptop. I will try to remind myself and start a "Credible fakes topic".