https://coinsweekly.com/european-central-mint-exposed-as-pivot-of-counterfeiting-ring/ This is old news, but I just ran across it for the first time and it is quite amazing. First, for all the found fake coins, I am convinced millions more are being produced undetected that are nearly impossible to determine they are fake. More moreover, coins change so fast, who would know what is fake? I can probably produce fake golden dollars today and circulate them and no one other than the FBI would even notice the design is wrong.
Thanks for the post. I missed that news back in 2014. Who else could do such a good job of fakes than an authorized mint.
Russia has a good bit of experience with it. Starting in 1768 the Russian Royal Mint minted counterfeit Netherlands god ducats for a 150 years - non-stop ! And the counterfeits are so good that the majority of the time the TPGs can't tell the counterfeits from the genuine coins. All of the TPGs, and yes that includes NGC and PCGS, have slabbed countless examples of these counterfeits as genuine coins.
I believe that the reason counterfeit coins are such a booming business is because I would bet the vast majority of coin collectors are casual collectors. Not like those of us that live our days based on our dealers business hours and our CT connectivity….. For every one of us rabid collectors, I bet there are a hundred casual collectors that believe they got a nice deal on their coin that they tucked away in the sock drawer….. These counterfeit operators are one huge black eye on our hobby.
I was making that point in the other thread and ldhair was being antagonistic to this reality. SOme have a fundmental problem understanding the difference between commerce, fraud and theft.
I doubt it, I would suspect the alloy was probably fairly close to the genuine coins. This article dealt with counterfeits intended for circulation not collectors
