New Counterfeit Threat - Fake NGC Holders!

There are also other minor discrepancies in the label. For instance, the A does not proper line up with the scale.

An XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) scanner is a device which can be used to identify the composition of a sample, in this case the coin. They help detect counterfeits by determining the coin's exact composition to compare it to the composition of a real coin. They are not cheap- one of our members bought one a while back and said that $10,000 will buy one of the cheaper ones that doesn't work well. He paid $16,000 and change. I believe it still works for encapsulated coins.

Thanks immensely for the in-depth alert, JDRMCB. My FIRST question is what in h--- is NGC doing about this? If we can no longer trust what is written on the slabs, exactly what product do they have to sell? I understand "buy the coin, not the slab." The uncomfortable truth is that the errors you discovered would have been (and likely were) missed by many. They were very nearly missed by you. Thank Heaven for your doggedness.

We need to hear that NGC is aggressively pursuing these criminals, and that the justice system is levying severe penalties to discourage them. If they are being generated by foreign nations, why do we continue to allow business with them?

There are collectors among us, who might make a once-in-a-lifetime purchase of a very high end collectible, that, conceivably, couldn't recover financially from such a swindle!

I'd recommend that you forward your discovery to Dwight Manley's people to be included in their investigation (ref: OP). Jack

I have an XRF and it has a gold plated detection setting. Here is a link if you really want to check it out.
http://www.thermoscientific.com/con...2012Dec3.pdf
Every year the tech gets better and it's definitely the least intrusive method of testing. Is it 100% foolproof? No, but nothing really is.

They are not cheap by any means, but if you have a use for it they are great.

Most higher end modern themed coins are bought for personal collections. The majority of the collectors that unwittingly buy these slabs tuck them away in their private collections with no intent to ever resale them.
Once they purchase the coin and take possession, they don't want to find any decrepancies or "red flags" so they really don't look for any! Even if they did, most wouldn't be able to identify these extremely well made counterfeit slabs that are currently available for purchase in the inventory of US based sellers!

That's the scary part, it starts with the greedy low life "US citizen" that orders these high end fakes by the dozen from a seller off the oriental version of the bay for a fraction of the wholesale price that one legitimate slab would bring and gets them into the US. Anyone residing in the US with a PayPal account and a verified mailing address could do it if they wanted to and I'm pretty sure there's a large number that do!. And unfortunately we can't do anything to stop them because for some unknown reason it's completely legal to bypass Title 18 U.S.Code § 486 (aka the "copy" stamp law) when using the Internet!

And the damage becomes irreversible once the first reputable dealer gets outsmarted by this ever persistent evil person, and ignorantly purchases one of these slabs at such a bargain price, it gives the dealer a guilty concious upon completing the purchase. And once again, after spending one's own money and taking possession of the slab, it's just instinctive human nature, to not want to discover anything wrong with it! So he places it in his showcase and goes on with his day.

So now there's a well made counterfeit slab for sale... on the open market, & inside the "circle of trust" for that reputable dealer, that consists of his patrons and clients as well as all the numerous other reputable dealers and auction houses that he routinely "rotates" inventory with or conducts business with, along with all their patrons and clients, etc.

So you can see, even at the local level, the damage caused by these slabs would be catastrophic and immediately begin to undermine the entire system of numismatic guarantees that we've all become way to dependent on since the birth of TPG's in the late 1980's!

I've always been advised to buy the coin, NOT the slab. But without raw coin in hand, how can we even begin to consider what it might grade, without first knowing that the coin is indeed a genuine example?!?!

The reason is that the fakes are made and (initially) sold by people in countries outside the US,and US law does not apply to them. The person in the US that is buying them and bringing them in IS breaking the law but finding them is almost impossible unless you were to stop, open, and inspect (using knowledgeable people) every letter/package that came into the country.

After performing further research on this seller, I have discovered irrefutable proof that this seller is not just shady, but an outright criminal, knowingly selling counterfeit NGC slabs!

He has already sold 3 coins that bear the EXACT Cert #'s of the same coin that a different seller recently sold!

This is an Early Releases coin and the NGC Pop is locked at 10 total coins.

I have already found 12 examples of this particular coin in NGC PF70 ULTRA CAMEO that have been sold in the last 2 months alone! And for such a low certified pop of 10 total, 7 of the 10 have been sold recently by 2 different sellers?!?! (3 by the seller in question and 4 from a different seller! But I stopped looking when I found more than 10. There are undoubtably many more!)

One seller has a current listing for one of these coins with 4 already sold. What's concerning about the current listing is that someone took a lot of time and effort to meticulously Photoshop the Cert # from the image! Highly suspect at the least!

See pics below:



















I did not choose to investigate this coin for any other reason that it was the sellers first listing at the top of his sold items page! He also has sold multiples of 2 other different NGC slabbed coins that clearly show identical Cert #'s! He's asking hundreds of dollars for these coins but seems to accept best offers which are still likely in the hundreds of dollars!

I have yet to get a reply from NGC concerning the email I sent them 4 days ago and this seller has yet to be shut down and is literally bankrupting their company, ruining their reputation as well as poisoning the livelihoods of honest ebay sellers and the entire numismatic community as a whole!

For a company that relies on a somewhat intangible good (their GUARANTEE) as their sole means of financial income and existence, they don't seem to be aggressively pursuing these individuals that will eventually lead to a max exodus by their once trusting members and consumers that will force them to close there doors, or at least there not doing so publicly!

This is pretty much a "worse case (SHTF) scenario" for the entire numismatic world and we should be at DEFCON 1!

I own over 300 NGC slabbed coins from all over the world and I'm afraid to even look at them too close in fear of what I might find!

I know that screaming on the forum is inappropriate, but we all need to be screaming at the top of our lungs demanding that NGC hire at least 1,000 people to actively seek out, identify, and arrest these criminals, followed by prosecuting these individuals to the fullest extent of the law!

It's the ONLY way I see, that could possibly produce a desirable outcome to this worldwide disaster...if it's not already too late!

I'm hoping that bobby131313 will notice this post. No one has a better track record of having illicit items removed from ebay. His method is unknown, his results speak for themselves. Jack