Coming up at an auction local to me, alarm bells always start ringing when I see a pile of silver: Anything not look right? More out of curiosity rather than any serious purchasing intent, but if the price was right... Zoom in here.
Your alarm bells are acute and accurate. I wouldn't let my enemy bid on that lot. You may want to do the auctioneer a favor and let him know that most all of those are certifiably fake.
Well, they state approximately 24 coins in all (they don't know exactly???), but only show 15, & only one side at that. Then you have the 20% commission, plus VAT on the hammer price, then shipping (which is about $25 in country - UK & No. Ireland; calculate for your international location)... Yeah, throw a $30 bid at it & see what happens... If you get it for that, you may be OK...
No shipping - close enough to collect which is why I was looking. Appreciate the confirmation of my suspicions, it's always good to get an idea if the auctioneer cares what he's selling. Other lots will be treated with similar skepticism.
Worth a $100 to take then off-market & a boon fo those who enjoy collecting either facsimiles or fakes. J.T.
Some look ok. The old holder pcgs looks fine. The damaged 1838 dime looks ok. I think the Ike and some of the Morgan’s look ok. The trade and bust dollars are such bad fakes they’re laughable especially the 1870 trade dollar which is a fantasy. I just saw a similar lot of fakes at an auction here. Some horrible trade and seated dollars as well as fake 93-s 89-cc and a couple other fake Morgan’s. There was a legit au 1884-o in the lot. The only real coin
It’s actually worth bidding on cheap. I’m curious about the pcgs Morgan. Probably a 78-82-s but looks nice from the reverse. I think it’d be worth a $100 gamble as you’d get some silver some legit Morgan dollars. I can’t tell about the Indian heads. The modern stuff is worth face value and there’s some fakes for a study collection
The bust dollars with reeded edges are definitely fake, the trade dollars are probably fake, but the other coins might be genuine.
I'd take a $20 gamble just for funsies. The only I am not concerned about are the Ike and the Kennedy. The rest are suspect. Maybe the Morgans are legit, but I hate Morgans so wouldn't pay anything extra for them.
I'd put a low bid in. 2 or 3 of those look legit, and if the auction has any built in mechanisms to compensate for fraud, you could easily avail yourself of them.
They have quite clear "nothing to do with us" policies. I won't be bidding on this lot, but I'll keep an eye on it and see what it goes for.
Hammer £220, so around $350 with commission. I can only assume that someone inspected the lot and was able to see those additional coins not pictured.
