Russian animals coins

I bought this lot of Russian animal coins that came in the mail from Russia today. There are 15 in the group I bought.

 

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Second group.

 

Last group.

 

Nice set! I like the quality and bi-metallic contrast. I bet they look really nice on an album page together

 

Yeah, and they're all uncirculated so they look really good.

 

@Hiddendragon , fantastic pick-ups! Very nice all of them!

I like the peregrine falcon the best, and the dolphin and owl are a close 2nd/3rd.

 

Thanks. I have a thing for bears so that's what first got me interested. Then I found out I could get the whole set for about twice what it would cost to get just one coin, so I couldn't resist.

 

Are you aware that these are copies?

 

They look a lot like copies from those scans. Post quality PHOTOS, maybe they are not from our Chinese friends after all.

But those rims issues and design differences... not much hope there.

 

Hmm gx is right, I didn't even think to look twice at them - the loss of detail and depth of profile is apparent along with the rims and proof-like appearance. I see the listing on ebay selling them for a dollar each, the listing openly says they are replicas and also has a picture of the genuine examples. Still a very nice looking set for the price if you like it just for the looks.

 

Alibaba sells these coins as a set for less than a dollar each.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1set...e-replica-coins-Free-shipping/1938060782.html

The key date of this red book is the Gazelle which at one stage topped up at over 100 dollars. While mintage figures suggest that this is not a low mintage coin, rumors are said that someone had hoarded a huge batch of it and thus supplies are low for only this coin. Or perhaps the Central Bank sent a batch back for melt?

 

Great purchase. I really like them.

 

Wait, why would they be copies? They are not valuable coins to begin with. They're not silver or anything. There are similar designs in silver that are a different denomination. Mine are Y #307, 308, 309, 330, 331, etc. in Krause. They came from a seller in Russia and the set was about $15 plus shipping.

 

They are not copies. They were issued in the 1990's. This is one of the sets available from that time frame.

 

Please feel free to check the sold section in ebay. I can assure you that you cannot buy a genuine coin for under 10 dollars unless it had some stains on it. Krause prices for Russian coins are all over the place.

Please check thread #11 - there is a link on alibaba. For the price of 15 coins to be sold for the price of a genuine coin - something is not right. What is distinct about these copies is that the color overall is just too bright.

These are a couple of examples from my collection

 

That's really annoying to find out. I had no idea I needed to worry about copies on something like this. I hate how you need to do all this research on everything you buy because of counterfeits. I didn't get into coin collecting so I could get bogged down in all this. I just wanted to own old coins and coins with nice designs. It's discouraging.

 

There is an easy solution. Before you buy anything, check "Completed listings" section. If you checked it before buying these, you`d know cheapest coins from this set sell for around $15 each.

Another red flag - buying coins from Russian sellers. Most of them don't sell fakes but those who do mostly don't mention they sell fakes or write it in Russian.

 

Authentic coins like these are not cheap. A complete set is a few hundred. How did you think for $15 you would get a BU set?

 

As he mentioned, it seems he was convinced these are very cheap and fakes just do not exist.

What I can't understand is how a person can collect any coins but could not be bothered with research.

 

It's one thing if you're looking for a 150-year-old key date. I don't expect that I need to do research on coins from the 1990s that I thought were just mass produced to make a little money like many countries do nowadays. What I did was an eBay search for coins with bears on them, and these came up as one of the hits. They were modern and pretty cheap, and that's not something that usually raises a red flag. I expect modern, base metal coins to be cheap. I got a 2012 Colombian coin with a bear on it too and I have no reason to think that is a fake.