Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;mikenoodle, post: 450309, member: 307&quot;]All too often, we field questions from people just entering the hobby about coins being offered by private mints that closely resemble actual coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Recently, I was listening to my favorite sports station when they touted these coins whose drawings were recently discovered in the basement of the Smithsonian Institution that were now going to be minted and available to the public.</p><p><br /></p><p>The problem is that even as what I consider to be a knowledgeable collector, I had to really sift through what they were saying in order to figure out exactly what it was they were offering. In this particiular case it was a coin that had never been minted by the US Government. It comes in a $100 dollar denomination called the Union. When one didn&#039;t listen to the commercial carefully, the logical conclusion was to think that these were coins that were found, not drawings. After a short glazing over of that fact, the sales pitch begins in earnest telling the listener where and when they could get these rare &quot;coins&quot;. In actual fact, they could get a newly minted &quot;non-legal tender version&quot; of these pieces.</p><p><br /></p><p>Some coins have been &quot;minted&quot; for places like The Northern Mariana Islands to be sold, but those who know these coins realize that the Northern Mariana Islands are a US protectorate and as such are part of the United States, and therefore have no money of their own, they use US coins. The private firm that sold these pieces were extremely unclear as to the monetary facts surrounding these coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>As another case in point, I offer the 1mil gold plated replicas of 1929 Proof golf half eagles found recently in many US newspapers for sale. This pitch was even more confusing to the general public as when someone goes to research this coin, they will find a genuine coin that not only looks identical, but for the layman, can be nearly impossible to distinguish between, thereby leading to people who jump to conclusions due to bad info about rarity and value of a real US Mint item almost indistinguishable from this one.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Hobby Protection Act was supposed to make items resembling US Coins readily distinguishable from the private stuff by using the word copy somewhere in the design, but IMHO, more needs to be done.</p><p><br /></p><p>We as a community work diligently to spread good and useful information to the general public, but with the proliferation of these offers lately, it is nearly impossible to keep up with all of the misinformation. These copies hurt our industry, they sour opinions on coins in general, create mistrust among the general public, and dilute the amount of information available on coins in general, thereby making it even harder for the public to determine where they can now turn for the truth.</p><p><br /></p><p>Do we need to ask our congressmen and women for a ban on the word &quot;coin&quot; in advertising except when it is a real monetary product? It might make it an easier information campaign. If the ad says coin, it must be a legal tender piece, not a copy or fantasy piece. You can then boil these ads down to looking for the word &quot;coin&quot; for the intent of fraud or not. </p><p><br /></p><p>I think it would also extend to places like eBay where people routinely sell tokens that look like California Gold, and other private mint issues as real coins. We can&#039;t seem to expect eBay to police itself, (Lord knows we have seen what they do when asked to...virtually nothing) because it behooves them to allow the confusion to continue. As long as it is a point of confusion and not law, they will continue to benefit by not changing their rules, thus allowing most of these frauds to continue and claim no responsibility. They make money on the bad transactions, and cannot be pinned down as responsible for any of it even though it was their website that spread the bad information.</p><p><br /></p><p>If the law is clear on the use of the word coin, then the fraud statute is easy to prove, or at minimum, is an easy rule of thumb to give to laymen so that they can be more sure when they are buying a genuine US Mint product vs. some fantasy piece that was recently discovered was in some sculptor&#039;s design book.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think that these pieces may have a place in many collections, but they should be gathered by people with enough information to know exactly what they are. If people then want to invest in something, or just buy it because they like it, they should be able to, but it should be without being misled, and without making it seem like they are getting something that they clearly are not. </p><p><br /></p><p>The sellers of these items need to be held responsible for keeping their messages clear and truthful and along with them, the advertising media that proliferate their messages need to also be responsible for their part.</p><p><br /></p><p>Many of the proposed laws want the government to protect people from themselves, I think that this line of thought encourages people to be critical of what they read and then being able to determine if the item is a mint product or not through the use of one simple word. A Litmus test for coins vs. medals.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in