http://www.theblackcabinet.org/2015...t-by-ordering-custom-counterfeits-from-china/ Very interesting! This might finally get the government to do a bit more to stop all these counterfeits that they're losing money themselves....
There are some really sharp people in China and the US that can see a dollar waiting for someone to grab it. I deal with folks in China everyday. Not coins. For the most part they are very honest.
“Interestingly, United States Mint personnel also believe that more half dollars have been redeemed by China-sourced vendors in the last 10 years than the United States Mint has ever manufactured in its history,” HAHAHAHAHA! I guess the Chinese were leveraging the fact that it takes our gummint a long time to figure things out sometimes.
Uh...wait a minute. If the recyclers have redeemed more half dollars than all those minted in history, we have a problem with the other-worldly and the fantastic. Some 2012 Red Book statistics. In 1964 more Kennedy half dollars were minted in that year than all previous years combined since 1796. I would bet that few "recycled coins" were 90% silver. From 1971-1980, just short of two billion clad half dollars were minted. The last year the US Mint produced more than 100 million, even 200 million half dollars a year was 1976, which were produced over a two-year period, 1975-1976. But the "take" was $5.4 million. Do the math.
The suspicions of investigators with U.S. Customs and Border Protection were raised in 2009 after they witnessed an uptick in shipments of mutilated coins coming through the Port of Los Angeles, prosecutors say. All the years and now they look into it
The $5.4 million "take" was just from three companies from last year. They've been doing this for ten years and they figured it out five years ago. (Of course figuring it out didn't keep them from continuing to buy the fakes for another five years.) And if they are right about that redeeming more halves than were made, I would assume they mean clad halves from 1971 to 2000. And if you add up the mintages of just the ones made for circulation, not including the proofs or for collector only pieces, they have defrauded the government out of about 1.4 BILLION dollars minimum.
