Sometimes plastic can save your hide

[shirohniichan]

A friend called me yesterday to see if I would be interested in circulated bust and seated dollars. He said he bought them a few years ago and decided to sell them since he really only likes UNC coins (if he buys coins at all).

 

The more I talked to him the more I'm convinced everything he has is counterfeit. He said he had an 1872 seated dollar. From his description over the phone, it's an 1872-CC Trade Dollar . If that's the case, even the 1922 Peace dollar he got from the same person is probably fake.

 

He's a currency collector, so he doesn't know much about the bust or seated series. If you don't know about the coins offered to you for sale, you'd best pass until you can get an education. If the coins he'd bought were in genuine NGC, PCGS, ANACS, ICG or SEGS slabs, at least he wouldn't have bought counterfeits.

[MunkyMan95]

He should have stuck to Funnybacks and Woodchoppers.

[nwcs]

Plastic definitely helps the uninformed.

[MikeInFL]

We are all uninformed in some respect.

 

The authenticity guarantee provided by the TPGs is their single most valuable service -- even more valuable to me as a collector than the grade, IMHO...Mike

[shirohniichan]

We are all uninformed in some respect.

 

The authenticity guarantee provided by the TPGs is their single most valuable service -- even more valuable to me as a collector than the grade, IMHO...Mike

 

Die-struck counterfeits from China are getting pretty damned good. Had it not been for the date on the trade dollar, there'd be no way to tell over the phone that it was fake. From what my friend tells me, it looks pretty convincing in hand and is made of silver.

 

I told him the best way to see what's wrong with them is to take some of his slabbed seated and Peace dollars to use for comparison.

[lkenefic]

I've been looking at alot of 1877 Indian head Cents and 1909-S VDB Lincolns recently. Some of the Transfer Die counterfeits are really tough to spot. Since they were prepared by sacrificing a real coin, all of the typical diagnostics are there. You need to have the coin under a stereomicroscope at 30x magnification to tell in some instances... I feel for your friend...L

[bsshog40]

I beleive that if I were to purchase a coin of significant value, it would have to be in one of the top TPG's.

[JRocco]

Plastic definitely helps the uninformed.

 

What helps the uninformed more than anything is to first become informed.

 

I, for example, know nothing....zero nada zilch...about old Chinese vases....nothing....now if I go out and spend serious money on an old Ming vase (I think there are such things as Ming vases) from someone selling it on EBAY that lives in South Dakota and claims to know nothing about this vase except that his old aunt Tilly always thought this old vase was handed down from her great great great uncle Sid who believed that his great once removed grandfather, a famous Druid priest from Gaul once found this old vase in a pile of rubble next to an old church and it had the words MING written in what looked to be blood in the dirt next to this pristine intact vase, only to find out is was really made last Thursday in Hong Kong and this guy from South Dakota only sunk $6.77 into it including shipping.......well .... let me repeat.....

What helps the uninformed more than anything is to first become informed.

[gmarguli]

Die-struck counterfeits from China are getting pretty damned good. Had it not been for the date on the trade dollar, there'd be no way to tell over the phone that it was fake. From what my friend tells me, it looks pretty convincing in hand and is made of silver.

 

If he's not a coin guy, what makes him qualified to say it "looks pretty convincing in hand"?

[halfpint]

 

 

If he's not a coin guy, what makes him qualified to say it "looks pretty convincing in hand"?

 

very good point!

 

 

[shirohniichan]

Die-struck counterfeits from China are getting pretty damned good. Had it not been for the date on the trade dollar, there'd be no way to tell over the phone that it was fake. From what my friend tells me, it looks pretty convincing in hand and is made of silver.

 

If he's not a coin guy, what makes him qualified to say it "looks pretty convincing in hand"?

 

He usually buys slabbed UNC coins and paper. This was his first forray into the land of cheap, raw coins. I hope it's his last until he can learn more.