Security Against Gold & Silver Counterfeit Coins

Any "anti-counterfeiting" technology will be copied. I think you are being a little too paranoid. Most bullion is real, most dealers are trustworthy. Of course, never buy something that seems to be too good to be true. Real gold costs real money, and nobody will sell gold too cheap.

Personally, I own mostly old US gold coins, but some others from around the world. I prefer older coins versus modern bullion, since it seems the modern bullion is the stuff being more faked nowadays. Like investing, diversification helps here too. Some US, some world, some stabbed, some not, some up to 1.25 ounces down to quarter eagles.

Whatever makes you feel better really at the end of the day, just warning you any technology is reproducible. Do not hang your hat on only one thing. A good dealer is a better defense than any technology.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Your last sentence is a very good one. However, I think you are missing the point. Those of us who are about security features on coins care not just for when we buy, so we're sure we're not getting ripped off. We also care for when it comes time to sell.

The best in the industry security features on the Canadian Maples allow me to easily resell my Gold Maple leafs to almost anyone who can pick up a loop and observe the radial lines and the privy mark. So, it's not just about buying and selling from a reputable dealer. It's also about the easy of reselling in almost any other venue.

 

Anyone who can pick up a loop and know how to authenticate a maple leaf due to radial lines and a privy mark can pick up a loupe and learn to authenticate any other coin sir. Either buying or selling maple leaves, early US gold, buffalos, etc one must learn how authenticate coins should look. Maple leaves are not immune to this. What good does a privy mark do if you don't know what an authenticate one should look like? A fake one would look the same to someone who doesn't know any better.

There are nothing magical about maple leaves that only they can be authenticated. If you are in the US, a maple leaf will always sell at a discount to a US mint product.

If you like them fine, but please do not think a maple is the only way to protect yourself, or the market will pay premiums for a radial line or privy mark.

 

The Maple Leaves have the "DNA" which can't be replicated. See here:



Of course only a dealer with the machine can authenticate it. But the technology cannot be copied by counterfeiters. When selling privately a buyer and seller can meet at a dealer who is willing to "rent" his authentication machine for the buyer to check the "DNA" and make sure it's real. No other coin provides that level of security.

Am I really being paranoid? Have you seen this website?

https://www.fakebullion.com/index.php/news-updates

Counterfeiting bullion is a business model that people make serious money on! Law enforcement can barely keep up with the mega thefts >$200k. But the rest of us are on our own with "minor" thefts of <$200k. If there is an authentication process that gets around this, as the Maple Leaf does, why wouldn't I keep my bullion exclusive to that which insures it can be sold without concern for its authenticity?

 

You seem to be living in a completely different world. It sounds like for you in your numismatic world you know how to authenticate things like pre-33 US gold. Good for you. Nice skill.

But for many more people who live in a different, bigger world than you, they just don't care. They don't about gold minted for circulation. Instead, they care about BULLION stamped with its fineness, its weight, and that contain security features that the average person who doesn't want to dabble in numismatics and certainly doesn't have any desire to become a numismatist can learn how to authenticate in just a few minutes. That is what is great about The Canadian Gold Maple Leaf. Your average person can look for the privy and radial lines, he can easy check the weight and diameter as well, and it requires no special skills to do any of this.

I'm happy for you that you enjoy gold with some numismatic value. And you have your market that might be interested in that. But for me, the primary reason why I have gold and silver is because it's an extra investment, of sorts, and the people in my world don't care about anything but metal value.

 

...and the radial lines and privy are not counterfeitable? My point would be whatever coin design you put on a coin can be copied. For it to be effective, it has to be so perfect that someone who knows what it should look like would know the difference. Um, same as every coin. The reason I prefer coins over bars is that there ARE ways to verify coins if you know what an authentic one should look like. However, adding other designs does NOT change the fact the person authenticating it WILL need a modicum of skill to do so. Radial lines are not magically able to be authenticated by everyone, but every other coin ONLY can be authenticated by coin experts. BOTH require some skill.

@Good Cents, maybe. Still how many people whom you need to sell in the future will have these machines? Also, I read this is simply registering dies. With today's technology, its reproducible. If not today, in the near future. People here a decade ago claimed everyone should only buy slabbed bullion, and that would protect you. Well, today, you better know how to authenticate the coin inside the slab because the slab is reproducible AND a fake slab makes it MUCH harder to prove a fake coin inside.

Again, it all gets back to a good dealer really. Buy from someone knowledgable at normal market prices. Do not chase "deals". Most of these fakes being uncovered are being done so by the dealers. Rely on their expertise.

If this is all too much for you, I suggest buying junk US silver. Pretty easy to authenticate, very divisible. The only downfall is weight if you start getting a few thousand ounces.

 

I hear you. Darn, this is confusing.

I'd be very interested in reading about that. Do you have a link?

Unfortunately that's not an option. I can barely lift the silver that I have!

 

The bullion DNA system of the Royal Canadian Mint laser engraves a code into the coin. This is authenticated when it is scanned by the machine registered dealers hold. Among those registered dealers are Provident Metals and JMBullion. My two favorite online sources.

So, as a buyer I trust buying from those dealers. Not only do I trust buying from those reputable companies anyway, but I also know they are trusted by the RCM in order to receive such equipment and participate in the program. https://www.mint.ca/store/mint/customer-service/bullion-dna-dealer-locator-10900014
Furthermore, I know these companies also buy Maples second hand. That is why I, as an extra cautious buyer, always buy the new year gold Maple. That way, it's extremely unlikely to be sourced from the secondary market, cutting down further on the risk of a counterfeit.

As a seller, ideally I would sell right back to a reputable company that would put it under the scanner, see where and when it was minted, thereby authenticating it. Easy.
But, I might also sell back to a local coin shop that does not do the volume to participate in the DNA program, so for them, basic authentication of size, shape, appearance will allow them to authenticate the Gold Maple.

However, I might also sell directly to another individual. That individual may dabble in numismatics or he may be interested only in gold as bullion. In that case, he may choose to buy from me because it will cheaper than buying new from a dealer, but he can also do it from me in person. For me, i can sell for more to him than to a coin shop. However, this potential buyer, this layperson, who is only interested in bullion, will want to look for the privy mark and radial lines that only a large mint like the RCM has the ability to make.

The absurdity of the US mint is that it thinks new bullion investors will carefully examine the letters or the shape of the bison to make sure it matches. This is ridiculous. The average person won't know what to look for. But it is much easier to educate yourself to look for privy mark than the shape of a letter on a coin.

Quite frankly, all it comes down to is that the US mint seems much less concerned about security for its bullion than it does its circulating notes. And that's a real shame for Americans who can't feel confident in their own government to a make a good product. But what else is new...

 

Maybe I am missing something. What makes radial lines and a privy mark completely unreproducable? If you say, "sure, they can try to reproduce them but it will not look right" you will circle right back into my point, so fair warning......

 

It's not completely unproducible. Reread my post.

"the privy mark and radial lines that only a large mint like the RCM has the ability to make."

 

I have seen the radial lines and privy mark. WHY can only a large mint fake them? Mints have forever added technology to make it harder to fake, yet the fakers quickly find ways to imitate them. WHY are radial lines and privy marks now magically so special they will succeed where every other technology mints have employed for centuries have failed?

Not trying to pick on your sir, just pointing out that to my view you are drinking the koolaid of the RCM a little too much. I am willing to bet you that in a few years or less there are credible fakes of these, (maybe not fool you, but would fool some), of coins with "radial lines and privy marks" on Alibaba. Like most things, ONLY knowledge can help protect you, and even then not absolutely, just mostly. "Radial lines and privy marks", from my reading, are simply die cut, and as such, reproducible.

 

New to bullion? Here’s an obvious but crucial point @myownprivy makes in the excellent posting, above. It deserves extra emphasis and is, of course, applicable to silver and platinum Maples as well.

 

At this point, it's beating a dead horse. You seem to already have in mind what you want to type to me or others before you actually read what we have written. Therefore, it is no longer worth responding to you because we're not having a conversation.

 

Btw:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-det...?spm=a2700.7724838.2017115.472.5e401f8e6IzW6W

Radial lines, privy mark on a gold plated, tungsten core maple leaf. If you do not know the design perfectly, you CAN be fooled. The SG will be right on with tungsten.

Knowledge of the coin and seller is your only defense, and simply accept that even this will not be perfect. There is no technology that be 100% assured you are safe. I am sure at some point whatever the RCM machine is reading will be copied as well.

 

No, I have read your assertions that how "only a major mint" could replicate such things, (did this come from a RCM press release?). I am simply saying its not true in my view, but would love to learn something if I am wrong.

Please, again, (especially given the easily found Alibaba fake posted above, you can easily find vendors in China to make better quality ones as well), how only a "major mint" could ever make radial lines or a privy mark? You are making assertions here that untold thousands of others will read, and I refuse to allow them to be uncontested. Thousands of more people read these posts than are members here. I do not want them thinking they can simply buy a maple leaf from an unknown party and believe they have no risk. The link above PROVES a maple leaf has no less risk than any other bullion. If you do not know what you are doing, make sure your DEALER does.

The whole reading a coin DNA is interesting, and I thank you for bringing that forward, but brings up a whole other can of worms. A lot of people who buy pm do not want their name associated with it. However, something like that possible could be used to trace sales, which to someone paranoid about having their ownership traced be of a different concern.

 

https://goldcoinbalance.com/ No, I do not own stock in nor own this company.

 

And remember that, in the future "dream scenario" where you're trying to buy food or buy your way into another country with bullion, your counterparty will not know whether you knew what you were doing. If your uncounterfeitable (or at least not-yet-counterfeited) 2019 bullion is available in quantity from Alibaba in 2020, who will want to take it in trade in 2024?

 

The 'DNA' reader is made and sourced by ARJOsolutions according to RCM docs. It likely could be a simple cell phone "code spot" reader app. Every "end of world"er saves guns, silver or gold, so they will be less desirable than amoxicillin, birth control pills, water purification tablets, and viagra for trade. IMO Jim

 

...And flu medication, since I have to go get some more soon....

 

Thank you for sharing some new information. I will respond in kind.

1) While those Alibaba fakes look good, one important thing to note is I am almost certain they are not true images of one of their counterfeits. If you look online (youtube, ebay, etc) for images of reproductions of the Maple Leaf's radial lines and privy marks, they clearly "look" fake. And what my point earlier in the thread was, is that looking for something as simple as lines or privy marks is easier for the lay person than something more specific like the shape of letters or design of a bison.

2) The other dead giveaway is size. It is much harder to fake a 9999 coin than an alloy. A coin composed of a single metal will always have the same dimensions. Period. However, for an alloyed coin like an Eagle or Krugerrand, one could produce an alloy and gold it plate it and get it much closer to the actual weight, diameter, and thickness of an Eagle or Krugerrand. However, this is not possible even remotely possible for Gold Maple. A gold maple is 31.1 grams and 30 mm diameter and 2.8mm thickness. It fits perfectly in a 30.6mm airtite to test these specs.

Thus, for an average person who wants to buy an ounce of gold, visual appearance is one key to authentication. Look for the radial lines and privy mark.
Size: make sure it weighs 31.1 grams. Make sure it is no more or less than 30mm and is 2.8mm thick. Make sure it fits in a half dollar airtite.

You cannot do this with an alloy coin like an Eagle or Krugerrand. Combining a variety of metals can get you much closer to the specs of those coins, fooling the person who checks for specs for authentication.

It is more difficult to visually authenticate a coin that does not have security features than it is to authenticate a coin that does have one. Wouldn't you agree?