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Some reflections on ancient coin acquisition and fakes
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<p>[QUOTE="kevin McGonigal, post: 3577997, member: 72790"]I started collecting ancients in early 1961 with a nice denarius of Nerva costing $10 from a Philadelphia downtown department store. Since that time I have thousands of ancient coins go through my hands and have purchased hundreds, some of which I resold or traded later. I purchased and traded mainly at club shows and a few local coin shops, none of which specialized in ancients. Over time I have discovered that something like 5-10% of my acquisitions were fake, including some I discovered were fake right here on Coin Talk or another ancient coin forum. I am enormously saddened by this and hope that nothing I ever traded or sold was in this category.</p><p>I have tried very, very hard to educate myself to detect phony coins but with today's reproduction technologies it is becoming more and more difficult to detect them. Often I have found them suspicious only after coming home and doing some tests on them or posting them right here. I have also found out that dealers, especially at the shows are not at all happy with me when I show them how their coins were detected as fakes. One dealer at a local show was indignant when I showed him why it was a copy, not an original and will no longer do business with me and refunded only a portion of the purchase price.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am afraid that despite my best efforts to educate myself I cannot completely rule out present and future purchases as modern counterfeits. Every time someone posts coins here and asks if they are genuine I try to ask them why they think a coin might not be genuine, but it seems that the market is now overrun with fake coins and it is discouraging. Those counterfeits I purchased long ago and cannot return I now keep in my "Black Cabinet", which, unfortunately is still growing. I will keep collecting, but a good deal of the fun and pleasure of purchasing these coins has been to a great degree been replaced by concern and apprehension.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="kevin McGonigal, post: 3577997, member: 72790"]I started collecting ancients in early 1961 with a nice denarius of Nerva costing $10 from a Philadelphia downtown department store. Since that time I have thousands of ancient coins go through my hands and have purchased hundreds, some of which I resold or traded later. I purchased and traded mainly at club shows and a few local coin shops, none of which specialized in ancients. Over time I have discovered that something like 5-10% of my acquisitions were fake, including some I discovered were fake right here on Coin Talk or another ancient coin forum. I am enormously saddened by this and hope that nothing I ever traded or sold was in this category. I have tried very, very hard to educate myself to detect phony coins but with today's reproduction technologies it is becoming more and more difficult to detect them. Often I have found them suspicious only after coming home and doing some tests on them or posting them right here. I have also found out that dealers, especially at the shows are not at all happy with me when I show them how their coins were detected as fakes. One dealer at a local show was indignant when I showed him why it was a copy, not an original and will no longer do business with me and refunded only a portion of the purchase price. I am afraid that despite my best efforts to educate myself I cannot completely rule out present and future purchases as modern counterfeits. Every time someone posts coins here and asks if they are genuine I try to ask them why they think a coin might not be genuine, but it seems that the market is now overrun with fake coins and it is discouraging. Those counterfeits I purchased long ago and cannot return I now keep in my "Black Cabinet", which, unfortunately is still growing. I will keep collecting, but a good deal of the fun and pleasure of purchasing these coins has been to a great degree been replaced by concern and apprehension.[/QUOTE]
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Some reflections on ancient coin acquisition and fakes
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