Different opinions from two TPGs- what did they miss?

So, the short version story...

I found the raw example I posted here reviewing coins for sale by known bad sellers on my watch list. I could not attribute it, which as @CaptHenway stated should be one of the 1st steps in the authentication process (it is in mine!). I then contacted the Liberty Seated Collectors Club for help, only to learn they had one they were reviewing at the same time. Through those discussions we verified them fakes and I joined the club; I have had 3 articles to date on the subject of deceptive struck counterfeits published in their Gobrecht Journal since.

I also found my PCGS certed version in a major auction house with a "make offer to seller" tab and made an appropriate offer. I also alerted my contact at the LSCC about this one and promptly ended up in the middle of a controversy, but ultimately ended up with the coin after agreeing to allowing it be removed from the slab (with a copy of the label included with the coin).

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Yes, I realized that later and just forgot to re-edit my post

 

I have posted a "sister" discussion on another TPG certified "variety" in this forum today...

 

The real danger is that if there is someone or some group out there good enough to make these fakes and get them into the TPG slabs, what might they be making now that we have not discovered yet?

 

There is just no end to this and I am sure there are lots of counterfeit coins of this quality on the market. There is no way that even a moderately educated coin collector can know that such an obscure deviation of a fake from a variety analysis makes the coin counterfeit. There will always be a market for this. The ONLY protection, and which is a repetition of what I have been saying all along, is that the dealers and auction houses have to get SERIOUS about identification databases, coin tracking and pedigree. Every coin a dealer purchases needs to be analyzed for pedigree and determined that it has not been stolen. It needs to IDs digitally and tracked. That will largely protect people from counterfeits. The grading companies are not doing variety analysis unless you pay for it. This will slip past them every time. Bet on it.

 

There is a fourth example (raw) lurking out there as well...