Featured Two counterfeit coins in counterfeit PCGS holders.

They explicitly say just the gasket is made in the US (presumably because they can control what chemicals are in direct contact with the coin), while the shells are made in China.

IIRC, the chips are also being made in the US, and they aren’t simply RFID.

 

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Like during an auction preview or when looking through a dealer’s wares?

 

In slabs that aren’t double-protected by a picture of the coin itself...

 

I am sure the TPGs can eventually try to get some RFID chip package, with high res photos, etc to protect high end coins. What I am worried about as a hobby is current generation or older slabs being perfectly copied, (holograms and logo printing are not hard), and better fakes being placed inside. Imagine if someone can product a "good" fake slab of generic 63 gold without major identifying blemishes, and match it up with correct holder?What dealer can afford to spend this time for every purchase to try to ferret this out? Worst, what reputation will the hobby get when 80 people start broadcasting on social media how they were scammed with such good fakes? What about slabbed mercuries and ASE? $50 is a lot of money per coin in some countries, worth the effort to do it better.

Its the reputation of our entire hobby I worry about. We already have a bad enough one with the PM thieves that pop up every couple of years.

 

Assuming the TPGs do a good job with technoslabs, it will be a huge moneymaker because there will be lots of folks wanting their coins in them ... huge flood of coins for reholdering. May not be economically feasible for coins worth less than a few hundred dollars though. Probably in a few years, any valuable coin that is still in a non-technoslab will get a extra-close look whenever it comes to market.

The primary purpose of having technoslabs will be to fight counterfeiting. But the possibilities beyond that are limitless. Theft deterrence is one. Dealers can have scanners at shop exits to detect hidden coins going out. Shows can have a scanner at exits. If a coin is reported missing from a table, its ID goes in the scanner server. It will be easier to identify lost coins when they are found. Inventory by dealers, auction houses and collectors will be much more efficient. Data on the coin (mintage, etc.) and pictures can be encoded in the chip(s). There can be some erasable user memory where the owner can put in whatever data they please. And there's more beyond these possibilities ... you might even be able to use a slab as a flashlight!

Cal

 

Nvm

 

PCGS is already doing this.

We are already seeing this.

If the number of fake slabs increases in the next 10 years like the number of fake coins has in the past 10 years, our hobby will face an existential crisis.

Well, a TrueView costs $5, and the chip costs, at most $5 (maybe $0.50 in bulk?). PCGS could raise grading fees by $5 for all coins to get this protection, then they would literally be the safest Slabs to buy on the market. That would put the demand for PCGS slabs well above NGC. You listening PCGS?

This is really an excellent point that I have not thought of before.

This would be a really interesting way to track provenance and add variety/etc. info not already on the slab.

 

Maybe part of the hobby. Those parts not needing TPG might benefit. I agree it's a major concern. I have seen the better fakes, and entombed in plastic they are all the harder to find out.

I think a tough sell on the chips would be privacy. Most coin collectors I know are secretive, and would not like the idea of someone being able to waive a wand over their safe or SDB and knowing what is in there.

Then, what would be on the chip? If only slab number and grade, easy enough to fake. If some kind of blockchain, who in the world will pay access fees to get access to the blockchains? Even THEN, every coin for sale at an auction could have its id read and copied.

Hate to be pessimistic, but everything described, to me, would be both an invasion of privacy to many, and easily duplicatable by many others.

I don't have an easy solution short of learning your coins better.

 

(1) What is the current Gold Standard in technology to prevent counterfeit slabs and/or coins ?

(2) Are pictures the ultimate backstop ?

(3) Are there technologies in modern currency (i.e., inserted ribbons, color shifting) that can be incorporated into holders ?

 

No, there would not be just grade and cert. no. In fact those don't have to be there at all. There are a number of ways to do the security part. Here's one way:

The chip would have a long, unique ID number embedded in it. Only PCGS would know it. It would also have a long encryption key, which only PCGS would know. When the chip receives a query signal, it generates a long random number which it combines with the ID number; then encrypts the pair. The encrypted pair is sent out. The PCGS server decrypts the pair and separates them. Then it checks the ID number against its database. It sends back "invalid" if that's the case. If valid, it sends back "valid" plus grade plus cert. no. and maybe a picture as well. Because of the random number, the encrypted pair will be different every time the chip is queried ... good luck to those who want to figure out the ID number.

Privacy is not a real issue. Put the slabs behind metal (sheet or screen), and they're unreadable.

Cal

 

That would have been possible with the RFID chips in use 13 years years ago when the fake slabs first started showing up and the use of the chips was suggested. They could be read at a distance of a few feet. Theft deterrence was suggested back then as well. The chips they are using today are of the "contact" type and have to be within about an inch of the reader. So someone at lot viewing at a show could skim chip information for making fake slabs, but if you were sneaking coins out of a shop or show they would be too far away from the readers to be activated.

 

There are all kinds of wireless "chips". Yeah, the ones on credit cards need to be close. But there are ones that work meters away. With encryption (see my previous post), skimming will do no good. There are some additional details to add to my previous post. Once the TPG server receives the encrypted pair, the random number partner will be remembered. If it shows up again, the pair will be considered invalid. So if someone captures the encrypted pair and puts it in another chip, little good it will do them.

Cal

 

Just a few questions @calcol , if there is something like metal to prevent a SDB from being read, (security concern), wouldn't the same prevent a reader at the door of a show from tracking a coin leaving? If they had a chip inside the slab, this would not be of use unless you were somewhere with a scanner and TPG access to submit the information, correct?

Just trying to figure out how this would work. Anyone trading coins back and forth would have no protection I take it, it would only work buying or selling to dealers.

The major downfall would be cost. You are expecting the entire population of coins to AGAIN have money spent on them to be TPG slabbed. How many more billions will be extracted from the hobby....

I am sure many will say I am just old and grumpy, but I don't know why a person wouldn't just study and learn coins. If this is what would be required to be a coin collector, why not be a bitcoin collector instead?

 

A new one from the Bay...



No image on the PCGS on-line cert but the auction reference thankfully has images (courtesy Heritage).

 

Wow. Darken the first one up a little and how would anyone tell?

If I bought slabbed US coins, it would scare the bejesus out of me. Maybe in hand you could tell, but being in plastic will make it harder to make sure. Hard to tell from photos, but besides the coin the main differences I see is a touch fuzzy lettering and the plastic ring around the coin different.

 

Reverse QR code appears different as well @medoraman.

BUT, the fake reads correctly to an app I found, the genuine one does not...

Tried it 3 items; fake:


Genuine:

 

Maybe the fake slab is genuine and the (supposed to be) genuine slab is fake lol

 

How does that grade a 64 ?

 

If you blow up the photo, you can see enough of the fake to know that it is a very poor copy, just like two I posted at the start of this thread.

I can't get a great image of the fake in the slab, but it looks similar to one I saw and added to my "virtual black cabinet" a few years ago.

 

Makes a person feel better. I could not see much of the fake, just that it was too red but was a DD, (purportedly). Good thing the good fake coin people evidently are not talking yet to the good fake slab people. I saw some SL quarters a couple years ago at a show that would give me pause, and they were raw so I could inspect better. Random dates, nothing key, but all nice MS grades. I know those coins, and there was just BARELY enough I could tell they weren't ok. The seller, after me looking and looking, asking questions, FINALLY admitted they were fakes. He didn't have any notice though that they were, no "not for sale" sign, or anything else.

I became suspicious, so became "interested" in a nearby table's coins. Many people came up, not one did he tell them they were fakes, and one man purchased one. I do not know the price, but I reported the dealer to the show organizer later. If any of those quite good fakes were in THAT slab, trouble. I am sure we have experts here who see thousands of these a day and could have spotted them in 10 seconds, but someone who collected them for years they were NOT EASY to spot. No one else in this regional show spotted them as fakes as far as I saw.