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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Vess1, post: 820946, member: 13650&quot;]Welcome to the site.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; I&#039;m assuming you are early on in the hobby so it is good that you are initially concerned about this, rather than buying and worrying about it later!&nbsp; Like so many do.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp; It is a concern.&nbsp; There have been many debates here over whether or not something was real or not.&nbsp;&nbsp; Many times it is Morgan dollars.&nbsp; The Chinese are kicking out really good ones nowadays, made with the proper metal content.&nbsp; Sometimes not. </p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Fortunately, many of them look &#039;off&#039; in one way or another and can be spotted.&nbsp; Sometimes they are a dull gray/green, or off in color.&nbsp; Unnaturally shiny.&nbsp;&nbsp; Features are too small or too big.&nbsp; Reeded edge looks bad.&nbsp; Raised metal blobs that shouldn&#039;t be there.&nbsp; Surfaces are grainy.&nbsp; Devices in wrong locations.&nbsp; Many times the Morgans look like MS-69s without the price tag so you know something&#039;s up.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; &quot;Mainly&quot;, I would be concerned with higher dollar stuff.&nbsp;&nbsp; But keep in mind there are fakes out there for almost everything.&nbsp;&nbsp; Relatively common, Indian head cents, Lincoln cents, semi-keys,&nbsp; common silver Washington quarters, Barber dimes, etc., etc....&nbsp;&nbsp; The Chinese have thousands of replicas for sale on ebay every day.&nbsp;&nbsp; The average person to beginning collector probably couldn&#039;t spot one in hand.&nbsp; &nbsp; Some collectors like to buy the cheap replicas to fill the last couple holes in their album set because they can&#039;t afford the real ones.&nbsp;&nbsp; Then the person dies and the family wants to sell the set and they don&#039;t know there&#039;s fakes in it.&nbsp; That&#039;s just one scenario.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;Keep in mind, all those replica stamped coins on ebay, are NOT stamped at all.&nbsp;&nbsp; They advertise as being stamped so they can run the auction but when they send them, there is no stamp anywhere on them.&nbsp; &nbsp; I know for a fact that several people are buying these from China and have seen at least one former buyer, passing them off as real on the selling side.&nbsp;&nbsp; Don&#039;t bother asking.&nbsp;&nbsp; Ebay does nothing to stop the Chinese sellers. </p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; Read, handle lots of stuff, get a good caliper and scale, and get to know every detail of what real coins should look like.&nbsp;&nbsp; I am also quite confident in the third party grader&#039;s abilities in weeding out 99.99% of fakes.&nbsp; &nbsp; Also get used to the different types of slabs companies such as NGC have used over the years.&nbsp;&nbsp; There are fake slabs out there too now, though I&#039;ve never seen one in person.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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