..continue to appear on eBAy, like this 1873, which has horrible dentils and rims: http://cgi.ebay.com/1873-Trade-Doll...dual?hash=item1c0c0bf3c6&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 or this 1878-cc, with the wrong (type-1) reverse: http://cgi.ebay.com/1878-CC-1878CC-...dual?hash=item518c15df88&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 (a good one to study, to see the problems with the dentils, altered surfaces, and pitting along the rims, esp. on the reverse). I think this may be an honest seller- few crooks post such excellent photos or guarantee authenticity!- so I sent him a polite email. and here is an 1876-cc, from guess where-- China! Fat rims, heavy layer of "Beijing mint frost" -- details actually look pretty good-- if worn a bit, this one would fool a lot of people. http://cgi.ebay.com/1876-CC-US-TRAD...dual?hash=item2a00a12820&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 All of the above took 5 minutes to find. A sorry situation indeed!
Every day you can find fake trade dollars or some other US coin that has been phonafied by China. It makes me wonder whose best interest ebay is looking out for if they do nothing about it? just my 2 cents
"best interest" = Final Value Fees, etc. eBay stopped listing fake Canadian coins when the Mounties protested to them... when is our Illustrious Gubmint going to do something similar?
Probably never....everybody wants to get that big score and they bid on questionable items. Sigh.....
When we change our laws to match Canada's. Canada does not have something like our Hobby Protection Act that allows marked copies replicas eta to be legally make, bought, sold, or collected. You can make a copy of a Canadian coin, with COPY all the way across it on both sides in big bold letters, and you are guilty of counterfeiting. Buy or sell one of those marked copies and you are guilty as well. They may even extend that same protection to coins of other countries as well I don't know. So they told EBay of Canada they had to remove ALL of the marked pieces or face counterfeiting charges. We have the HPA though which makes properly marked pieces legal thus creating an enforcement headache were some are legal and some are not. Then cases have to be decided more on an individual basis rather than a blanket elimination. To do what Canada did we would have to remove the HPA.
Yet another continuing reason not to buy RAW coins on e-bay when you don't know how to identify the real thing.
