Featured Modern counterfeit world coins... train your eyes, get your game up

The Japanese yen and trade dollars are one of the best looking (as in, most convincing) of the fakes they produce. They have also had very good looking copies of Mexican cap and rays 8 reales and US Morgan dollars.

 

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Here are a couple more to the list. These are pretty serious figures. If it hasn't rung alarm bells yet - I feel really sorry for the buyers.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/best66666/m...lete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2046732.m1684

http://www.ebay.com/sch/usfel_8bsjx...lete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2046732.m1684

Maybe I should compile a blog and see how far that goes.

 

You will have no shortage of things to post

 

Most of the coins I buy are fairly cheap, but if I start to buy an expensive coin, rest assured I will depend on the good eyes of CoinTalk.

 

Decent fakes of modern NCLT coins: http://www.ebay.com/sch/Coins-Paper...=1&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2046732.m1684

 

looks like ebay is letting them sell even with the word copy

 

Convincing fake key date 1946 Aussie penny:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1946-Austra...697?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f4ed04919

@rooman9 I know you are into these coins, watch out for these. Have seen dozens of them in the past couple of years, often selling cheap, which is enticing.

 

Thanks for the heads up! Yea that one isn't too bad. Details are a bit mushy. The good ole Kings nose seems a bit off. There's a few other things (Zero feedback-selling rare items). It's a shame we have to worry about this. Especially when the only place I can find items like this are on Ebay

 

Another round of fakes. I'm reporting them, but eBay rarely does anything.

Note that the second account changed the item location from Hong Kong to USA between their last completed round of listings to the current one.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/nanc_hopp/m.html?item=252004900303&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

http://www.ebay.com/sch/metzg_steve/m.html?item=252004805150&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

 

I will too

 

One more for your eyes: http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&LH_Complete=1&_ssn=lislisguerr&rt=nc

 

One for for you http://www.ebay.com/itm/1925-Bronze...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

Some more of the same:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/metzg_steve...ue&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2046732.m1684

http://www.ebay.com/sch/lislisguerr...ue&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2046732.m1684

Edit: Changed links to completed items.

 

I've just noticed lislisguerr is on the list. Pretty sad. A counterfeit Korean 10 mun sold for more than 600 dollars. Absurd. Again in UNC condition, that's easily a four figure coin. Buyer must have thought he / she has got a bargain. Wait till he / she tries to sell any of those down the road.

 

Yep, almost $700 and a couple weeks later same exact coin sold for $400. Can never tell if the first buyer didn't pay, or if they just used the same picture and ripped off two people.

 

We have a 'sexy' seller (?) trying to sell these counterfeits. Sales would be even sexier if they are genuine to start off with.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/sexyseller50/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25&_trksid=p3692

 

The usual fare. Probably the best of their account names so far

 

Wear is your friend. I collect coins that would have circulated in Colonial America. I want my coins to be, and appear to be, well circulated. Why? I give talks to visitors at the Colonial Era tavern I am a docent at. I like to tell these visitors that they are looking at and handling (yes, given the group I will allow them to handle a few of the coins) may have been handled by William Penn or Benjamin Franklin (he arrived in colonial Philadelphia with a couple Dutch lion dollars he picked up passing through NY on his way from Mass.). Those coins with holes? Pierced to hang them around one's neck before pockets were common. Maybe this Spanish almost worn smooth eight real cob was spent by Captain Kidd in Cape May as he replenished his sweet water stock. These well worn George II half pennies (the most common coin found at colonial sites) would have bought a pint of ale here at the tavern. These crinkled, stained, multi creased, finger smudged, mica speckled Continental notes (their rag paper stood up to handling much more than our pulp paper would)? Maybe paid by Washington to get those Continental troops to extend their enlistments another month or so. What does this have to do with these counterfeit coins and currency? It is difficult to for counterfeiters to reproduce just plain wear from circulation. Or Chinese chop marks (18 chop marks on a BU plantchlet?). None of them are piercing their fakes for sale as that would reduce their value to bullion. No, this will not guarantee that a coin is what the seller purports it to be but it reduces the likelihood, reduces the cost of adding to your collection and removes from your treasure what to me is a sterile, bland, uninteresting slug of metal or currency spent by no one. Good honest, plain wear can be your friend.

 

Nice ideas but it's not going to happen

 

It's a good point and definitely something people should consider when buying coins.

The problem is many collectors can't tell the difference between genuine circulation wear versus simulated wear on a modern counterfeit versus fakes hubbed from already worn coins and thus appear worn even when brand new (a lot of the heavily chopmarked fake 8 reales on ebay are examples of this third type).

As far as being holed, that I have not really seen with modern fakes. They do often have some damage that, while it will not reduce their value to bullion, still helps discourage people from sending them in to the TPGs where they will be identified as fake.