Much of the complaints and criticisms about Chinese fantasy pieces revolve around their poor quality and ugly oven-baked patina. The other issue is that they are often fraudulently advertised as silver when they are not at all. "Miao silver" is a common cop-out, though it's totally false. Miao silver is around 50-60% silver and what they use is pure base metal. That seems to be the heart of the "counterfeit" issue with the Chinese versions. People are not really getting duped by buying something they thought was a genuine coin, they are getting duped by something that they thought was made of precious metal. Don't mean to go off on a tangent here, just an area I have strong familiarity with
But if the pieces are of such poor quality, then it would seem that these pieces would be easier to spot than a Carr piece.
That is similar to this quote from George Bernard Shaw: "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." Years ago when I heard that humans and pigs have 98% of their DNA in common, my first thought was: I KNEW IT !!!
Well, the Chinese fantasy pieces are either a new design or a previously existing design made in a different material. So they are pretty blatantly spot-able But if you want to compare with high end Chinese counterfeits (like these), dc's pieces are an order of magnitude easier to spot. Really I think someone would have to be quite careless to mistake one of his pieces for a genuine coin. Of course it can happen. Probably has before and probably will again. Overall though, I think they present no more than a minimal risk to the hobby, one which is greatly outweighed by the interest and enthusiasm that such pieces seem to generate among those that collect them. The really ironic thing I get from all this is that non-existent dates and/or mint marks have been the most reliable thing to avoid getting duped
I won't be surprised....should I go back and change it to amazing PS I just checked no listing for Dan Carr or Moonlight Mint
His words have been heard here, plenty. He has made his points repeatedly. He has some good intentions. He HAS been asked to take his talent, and ambition, to EBAY, where the immediate, real danger of innocent people getting ripped off is everywhere. His statement on that is/was, it's on his RADAR. I think it's time he shifted his energy to the real, and immediate dangers that are present there, and stop posting his interpretations of the laws here. We have heard, and understand his, and your point of view, and I promise you that none here will be fooled by Mr. Carr's pieces. So job done here. Can't wait to see the onslaught/ devastation, to EBAY, when he, you, and the rest unleash your righteous fury against the real monster out there. Good luck, and happy hunting. P.S. No disrespect intended, and no belittling/name calling was involved in this post.
The battle against the onslaught of nefarious activities on ebay is being fought everyday by dedicated members of another site. The passionate people of this site should concentrate on the real threat as well. Our hobby would really benefit from it. http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=160
Thanks for the link, but it seems they could use some help as counterfeits continue to flood the market, especially on EBAY.
The honest truth is they always will be on eBay unless eBay shuts down the ability to sell internationally. There is absolutely no risk or repercussions for sellers in many part of the world listing and selling fakes on eBay to American customers. The worst thing that happens is their account is shut down and they have to make a new one. The amount of man hours it would take to actively check every single listing and varify would cause seller fees to rise to the point of crippling the site. As someone else had mentioned before other areas are of greater concern for fakes as well, knock off shoes or purses ect could potentially bankrupt a company
Point taken, no solution here, unless they simply stop allowing sales from outside the U.S., but there is already so much damage done. I guess that just getting the information out there more prominently might help the unaware buyers ?
There's no harm in people reporting listings and if they enjoy doing so by all means continue on. eBay certainly doesn't have any interest in shutting down international sales unless they're forced too which I am not even sure how you could do that. In my opinion it isn't unaware buyers that end up making most of the purchases, rather greed takes over. To use eBay you obviously have to be on the internet which means every buyer has all the ability in the world to look up information. Most of the time they could literally just look at other sold listings and be able to make comparisons on authenticity for most of the fakes. But seeing those great deals or thinking they are saving a bunch of money/can get it graded and make money on it takes over and they never stop to think why is this item so much cheaper/why is no one else bidding this up to market levels. For the fakes that actually are good information is the key. No amount of outside monitoring and intervention will be able to prevent fakes from selling if someone is just blindly buying raw coins on the internet. I am not sure the impact it would have on someones account, but I do know on some of the higher priced fakes one of the things some people have done is just bid the item up to moon money where no one else would conceivably bid on it and just not pay for it to prevent a sale if it wasn't removed.
I was burnt once, and that was because the seller simply sent a coin ( counterfeit ) that was not the same as the one that was shown on the auction. Thanks to EBAY, I did get a full refund, and still got to keep the fake as a reminder/memento. Many ways to cheat people, even when aware of the counterfeits out there.
This is extremely counter intuitive to do. Yes, they mean well. But those sellers will just relist the coins. And when they do, there is now a moon money recent auction record for those doing their research and determining what to bid.
It seems that until Chinese, ( and others ) government changes their laws about manufacturing copies with intent on deceiving, is changed, we will continue to have these abundant problems.
That won't change anything. There is pressure on governments to enforce anti-counterfeiting in regards to name brand goods and essentials. Coins and other collectibles are a different story. The counterfeiting would still go on just as rampant. There is no unified entity, like the FDA or large corporations, that can exert legal pressure when it comes to collectibles. People need to realize that the only defense is to be involved, to learn and to always keep an open mind.
Maybe. I sure would hope so, here at least. From my perspective it only changes the route, not the traffic
