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<p>[QUOTE="Insider, post: 4717643, member: 24314"]I think it best to break this up because I almost lost Part One to a glitch and I'm not rewriting it. It occurred to me that I should explain some of the reasons that all the TPGS are making a few more errors than you all think should be the case. </p><p><br /></p><p>PART 2</p><p><br /></p><p>The counterfeits that are being encountered today are very good and the "state-of-the-art" examples that pass the TPGS's as genuine for a while are unbelievable. If this technology would have been around in the 1960's every major collection would be full of fakes the became pedigreed and were bought and sold as genuine for decades just as the micro "O" fakes made generations ago. As a side note, when these coins were passed and became circulated they were state-of-the-art fakes at a time when counterfeit detection was in its infancy. They were possibly made by a foreign government however that is not the "story" (in old newspaper accounts) that accompanied them in the early 1900's when they were first detected (and then forgotten about by future numismatists). I believe that someone got a hold of the dies resulting in a group of high-grade modern fabrications leading to the detection of an entire "family" of counterfeits with examples that would still be undetected today! </p><p><br /></p><p>Now back to the history. A person does not wake up and become an expert authenticator. We had to learn for ourselves. In reality, the Mint lab "fathered" one line of professional authenticators while the other line was trained by "so-called-experts" of the day from the old hit and miss school of authentication. Remember I wrote that anyone can become proficient authenticators? Well, that's what eventually happened to that group. They learned to authenticate coins in spite of the failings of their original teachers! It just took them more time.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is the way it has worked AT EVERY prior authentication service in existence and the ones around today. I don't care what TPGS, who you are, what you did, or how big a professional dealer you were when you became a full-time authenticator. In the beginning, you made many errors. In 1986, what was going on at one new service provided countless hours of humor from authenticators who had already been working for years previously. You see, no one is an expert in all types of coins from all eras and countries. That's why, in many cases, the newly established services need to rely on consultants who are supposed to know what the genuine coins of their chosen specialty look like. Consultants were often professional dealers. Unfortunately, we quickly realized that many of them were unreliable sources for the correct opinion. After causing us to authenticate a fake Irish gold coin as genuine, we realized we would need to evaluate our consultant team. We continued to use many of them to educate us but most of our training became a process of authenticating the opinion of authenticators by personally studying genuine coins in museum collections. We also discovered that many advanced collectors who no one even heard of knew more about coins than the famous dealers acting as our consultants. Consultants are human and they are not perfect. In one case one of them authenticated an altered coin for us just because he had sold it! In most cases of incorrect opinions, the consultant had done his best but was just wrong. It is astonishing how a coin that looks absolutely genuine and is bought and sold in the market becomes a very crude fake when compared to a 100% genuine coin that has been locked in a museum collection for decades. </p><p><br /></p><p>Perhaps this will help explain why many counterfeits can pass a TPGS as genuine. Speed and expectations. You see, in the beginning, a submitter wanted an opinion one way or the other. Most did not care how long it took to reach the correct opinion. In some cases when the opinion of consultants was different and we could not choose the correct answer - a no-decision coin, we ere told to keep the coin and reach one! Sometimes, difficult or unfamiliar coins were sent to more than one consultant. Then when they were returned, the opinion of the consultants needed to be confirmed much of the time by direct comparison with a known genuine specimen under a microscope. We would need to save up difficult coins until we had enough to justify a plane trip to a New York museum or a walk to the Smithsonian Institute. This took time but no one cared. Our reputation and the reputation of the service were important to build and maintain. In several cases, it took almost a year to reach an opinion! </p><p><br /></p><p>That is not acceptable today. When you are hired as a professional authenticator at a TPGS they expect you to know everything and give the correct opinion in a matter of seconds. Very rarely is a coin held for further research. Microscopes were discouraged in the past but as of a few years ago, due to the quality of the counterfeits, I should expect there is at least one on a desk in the grading room at all times. I can be mistaken about this but I have always had one on my desk everywhere I worked and I used it!</p><p><br /></p><p>I'm going to turn this effort into a column for Numismatic news so there may be more later.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Insider, post: 4717643, member: 24314"]I think it best to break this up because I almost lost Part One to a glitch and I'm not rewriting it. It occurred to me that I should explain some of the reasons that all the TPGS are making a few more errors than you all think should be the case. PART 2 The counterfeits that are being encountered today are very good and the "state-of-the-art" examples that pass the TPGS's as genuine for a while are unbelievable. If this technology would have been around in the 1960's every major collection would be full of fakes the became pedigreed and were bought and sold as genuine for decades just as the micro "O" fakes made generations ago. As a side note, when these coins were passed and became circulated they were state-of-the-art fakes at a time when counterfeit detection was in its infancy. They were possibly made by a foreign government however that is not the "story" (in old newspaper accounts) that accompanied them in the early 1900's when they were first detected (and then forgotten about by future numismatists). I believe that someone got a hold of the dies resulting in a group of high-grade modern fabrications leading to the detection of an entire "family" of counterfeits with examples that would still be undetected today! Now back to the history. A person does not wake up and become an expert authenticator. We had to learn for ourselves. In reality, the Mint lab "fathered" one line of professional authenticators while the other line was trained by "so-called-experts" of the day from the old hit and miss school of authentication. Remember I wrote that anyone can become proficient authenticators? Well, that's what eventually happened to that group. They learned to authenticate coins in spite of the failings of their original teachers! It just took them more time. This is the way it has worked AT EVERY prior authentication service in existence and the ones around today. I don't care what TPGS, who you are, what you did, or how big a professional dealer you were when you became a full-time authenticator. In the beginning, you made many errors. In 1986, what was going on at one new service provided countless hours of humor from authenticators who had already been working for years previously. You see, no one is an expert in all types of coins from all eras and countries. That's why, in many cases, the newly established services need to rely on consultants who are supposed to know what the genuine coins of their chosen specialty look like. Consultants were often professional dealers. Unfortunately, we quickly realized that many of them were unreliable sources for the correct opinion. After causing us to authenticate a fake Irish gold coin as genuine, we realized we would need to evaluate our consultant team. We continued to use many of them to educate us but most of our training became a process of authenticating the opinion of authenticators by personally studying genuine coins in museum collections. We also discovered that many advanced collectors who no one even heard of knew more about coins than the famous dealers acting as our consultants. Consultants are human and they are not perfect. In one case one of them authenticated an altered coin for us just because he had sold it! In most cases of incorrect opinions, the consultant had done his best but was just wrong. It is astonishing how a coin that looks absolutely genuine and is bought and sold in the market becomes a very crude fake when compared to a 100% genuine coin that has been locked in a museum collection for decades. Perhaps this will help explain why many counterfeits can pass a TPGS as genuine. Speed and expectations. You see, in the beginning, a submitter wanted an opinion one way or the other. Most did not care how long it took to reach the correct opinion. In some cases when the opinion of consultants was different and we could not choose the correct answer - a no-decision coin, we ere told to keep the coin and reach one! Sometimes, difficult or unfamiliar coins were sent to more than one consultant. Then when they were returned, the opinion of the consultants needed to be confirmed much of the time by direct comparison with a known genuine specimen under a microscope. We would need to save up difficult coins until we had enough to justify a plane trip to a New York museum or a walk to the Smithsonian Institute. This took time but no one cared. Our reputation and the reputation of the service were important to build and maintain. In several cases, it took almost a year to reach an opinion! That is not acceptable today. When you are hired as a professional authenticator at a TPGS they expect you to know everything and give the correct opinion in a matter of seconds. Very rarely is a coin held for further research. Microscopes were discouraged in the past but as of a few years ago, due to the quality of the counterfeits, I should expect there is at least one on a desk in the grading room at all times. I can be mistaken about this but I have always had one on my desk everywhere I worked and I used it! I'm going to turn this effort into a column for Numismatic news so there may be more later.[/QUOTE]
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