Are the Chinese fakes a good thing?

There are many fakes and reprints in addition to all out counterfeiting
In the Mpc market, That,s the arena i deal in, I have several hundred
Of them and most are certified, Some people think this is a waste
Of money, Not me though, Better safe then sorry!!

 

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It really is a shame of all the counterfeits flooding into this hobby. But no one really complains about all the other fake items flooding in from China an other countries. I think I've seen Duracell spelled a dozen ways lately on batteries. Look how many shop at Walmart and that place is full of made in China items. Get those catalogs in the mail for mail order items. Try some and find those too are all made in China. How about our auto industry. I remember when it was shouted to only purchase US made autos. Buy American. Then it was released that even the ones assembled here were about 75% made of foreign parts. Do you have a TV set. Find one made here. Yes we all complain about the fake US coins but hardly anyone worries about all the rest of their products.

 

In the overall scheme of things, numistmatic forgeries mean very little to most people; our Chinese friends have managed to copy just about anything of value, be it fancy clothes, jewelry, watches, DVD's, CD's... anything that the U.S. consumer is willing to shell out the bucks for. And they are very, very good at what they do. I could go on about how China has destroyed manufacturing in this country, but that deviates too much from to OP. Counterfeit coins are a problem that will continue to grow, and I see no real solution.

 

I disagree since a lot of these are really, really bad and can be detected with a simple 7x loupe.

Reasonable folks learn from their mistakes and if they are even remotely serious about what they spend their money on, they will do basic research.
After all, folks that bought Edsel's and Corvair's didn't quit buying Ford's and Chevy's.
Counterfeit coins were around way before the Chinese jumped onto the boat yet those have not soured the hobby. Some of these were actually quite nicely executed and even fooled the experts yet the hobby has not suffered. If anything at all, cynicism and those that promote cynicism are the hobby's worst enemy.
There is a good side to the Chinese counterfeit plague and that is that it has made folks aware that these do exist and they need to educate themselves on really looking at what they buy.

As for the investor's that end up with bad "investments", you should hope that they'd stay out of the hobby to begin with since these are the very folks which have perpetuated the hoax behind the rarity of the Jefferson Missing Edge Lettering dollars. The prices are still way out of line with reality and that you can blame on investor's.

 

Ditto Its a good thing if you are a counterfeiter or a criminal , you folks know that these will find a way into the mainstream of the U. S. collectors . Perhaps not the avid collector who knows the fakes , but what about the novices or new collectors . Its a slap in the face of Americans by the chinese jerk$ minting these & a bigger slap by the U. S. Gov. for not jumping all over this and putting a stop to it :crying:

 

I think Chinese replicas are good news if...

....they're marked replica or copy.

I have several of them for comparative purposes.

But if they're not marked, then they're bad news.

Some of them are so good that most experienced traders can't detect them.

Bad juju.

hya:

 

They try to screen for dangerous things like nukes and other WOMD , but even with all our technology they can cover only a fraction of all the cotainer boxes that arrive in the US every day , only China herself can stamp out the problem and at presant they don't care , that's why I'll spend extra to keep from buying Chinese , even then your bound to buy a lot of chinese made things , because we sent our manufacturing overseas .
rzage

 

Are there any Chinese on this forum? What have they to say?

 

In my opinion, Chinese counterfeits are like calling a burglar an uninvited house guest.

 

as a novice collector, I try to only buy from dealers that have some expertise, and that have shown some integrity, UNfortunately there are some that I get the feeling they would sell you a counterfiet and then claim they did not know, basically so far only two dealers in the area that transmit that feeling to me.

As for Ebay I will wait until I know a little bit more about coins before I venture there, I have seen so many threads where the experienced collectors picked up on fakes and the ebay bidders were bidding genuine money for them.

And when I looked at the pictures of them before explanations were offered, I admit I would have been fooled, not that it would take that good of a fake to fool me.

So I look at it so far that when I buy from a reputable dealer I might pay a little more, but I am also purchasing his experience and savvy,

 

no

 

You're kidding, right?

 

Maybe you shoud read this article about chinese criminals & just how serious this problem is growing http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/10/13/fake-coins-flooding-in-u-s-market/

 

Good fakes make all of collectors a little bit better but no, it isn't a good thing any more than stock brokers selling derivatives.

 

Now actually the Chinese ARE breaking their own laws. Under Chinese law everything manufactured in China has to at least have that little gold sticker we all recognize saying "Made in China." But other then that, it's perfectly legal to ruin a fun and low stress hobby.

 

The only good Chinese fake is the 1948 Morgan Dollar. It's hilarious.

 

I don't see how anything that would discourage new and less experienced collectors from entering this hobby could be a good thing. As a new guy these counterfeits make it very hsrd for me to justify spending much money in this hobby despite enjoying it very much.

As for Quartertapper's suggestion that we x-ray all the incoming shipments it would be a noble effort but unfortunately, if you believe the press, we can't even do a decent job of preventing terrorists from shipping things in containers so looking for counterfeit coins would be a low item on the totem pole.

 

Here is a simple question. Why is it the Chinese are the only ones doing that? Not the Italins, Russians or Germans. The answer and solution starts in their own backyard. My god it happens with video, software and anything else that is made in this world. Maybe they can counterfet clean air. Let them work on that. Why we give them near super power status is beyond me. Not an original thought or bone in their copy cat bodies.

 

What makes you think they aren't? Before the latest boom in the production of fakes fom China, Russia was one of the biggest sources of counterfeits. Back in the 1960's it was the Middle East. There hav been fakes coming out of Greece and italy for ages. Now tha China has shown them the way Korean and Vietnamese fakes will probably not be far behind. One thing you have to look at are the laws of the various countries. In all of them it is illegal to make fakes of their own coins but in the countries that are well known for fakes there are no laws forbidding the production of fakes of someone elses coins. Most European countries though DO forbid the counterfeiting of other countries coins and currency. If you are going to counterfeit why not go to countries where it is legal and you know you won't be hassled by the police?

Also to some extent once an area is known for producing counterfeits any fakes encountered tend to be blamed on them. It's like a lot of the legal reproductions of US coins made here are called Gallery Mint copies even if they are things like the modern coins such as the SVDB, 16-D dime 1856 FE cent etc that the Gallery Mint never made!

 

We need chinese fakes as much as we need last years oil speculators...