Burnsville, Minnesota Coin Dealer Indicted For Fraud Scheme

That's not the Justice Department, that's commerce department.

Conder101:

There is a law already on the books that says a replica of a US coin needs to have that word stamped on it or the word Copy. We can enforce this. Selling fakes is getting to be a ridiculous thing here. I'm seeing it more and more. It's usually not a malicious thing, just ignorance.

The Chinese industry of imitating brand names is nefarious. By its very nature it violates patent and proprietary rights. Certainly, the sovereign right of a country to be the sole producer of its own currency is not questionable. Don't forget, even our oldest money, is still legal tender. Do you think China would like it if we counterfeited their money and then sold it over there, pennies to the dollar?

Trump, or any president, or other official with jurisdiction in such matters (Secret Service or FTC, perhaps) could speak out publicly on this, condemn the country's that condone it, and at least make more people aware. Non-collectors likely don't even know to what extent- nor, how well- counterfeited US coinage has become.

Yes there is, and the Justice Department could enforce that, but that's going after the people here that are marketing them not the people manufacturing them which is what the other gentlemen wanted them to do. I'm all for enforcing the hobby protection act, but it only has teeth against people in this country.




The dealer would be held accountable, he can't pass good title, and legally he can't sell unmarked copies, so he would be required to make full restitution to the buyer. Even if he sold it in good faith.

Exactly! No point passing another law on top of an already existing law if we won't enforce the first one in the first place.

The problem is we don't have a set punishment for crimes and we don't make them serve their full sentence when they do get sentenced.

Okay, so what would passing yet another law accomplish?

Thanks for the article link. That's the first I've heard of counterfeit PCGS holders. Doesn't surprise me a whole bunch sadly.

Like I mentioned before, this guy made his bed and now must sleep in it.

Good to see that someone who is cheating people is being penalized.

Call me paranoid, but I would never buy a coin that came from China. I have bought many coins from foreign countries... Australia, England, even the middle east. I once bought a bunch of 1940's "silver" USA dollars in the Philippines. I was positive they were fake, in that it did not make sense to buy a 1 ounce silver dollar for less than 3 dollars each when the spot price was around $15 at the time. The seller even had a magnet if you wanted to check them. I sent a few to friends in the Philippines, where they were listed as replicas or something of that nature. As far as the rest, I dumped them in the trash just before I left that country, but this was because I felt I might have problems with USA airport customs with the fake rolex watches for my personal use and for friends that knew they were fakes/replicas because I told them, I bought them for about $5.00. There was no doubt between the seller and me that they were replicas, I think that you are allowed one or two replica items of differing products into the USA as long as you declared them, which I did. Can you believe that watch broke within 4 weeks after I bought it hahaha. That being said, someone once in China hijacked my ebay account and changed my contact and password information so I could not log on and boot him off, these were in the days when you could not call ebay. So I emailed and I emailed and I emailed ebay, it took several weeks for them to fix the problem. In the meantime, the Chinaman sold dozens of new "$1,000+" retail price fake designer purses for about $150 and represented them as real. All the people needed was to see my 100% positive feedback and that I was a USA seller to get them on the hook. The kicker is that before ebay finally stopped the problem, I started getting positive feedback from delighted buyers who felt they got a very good deal from buying "real" purses for a tenth of their real "value" or listed retail price, a few of the buyers even bought one or two more of "my" purses as gifts after receiving theirs! Perception is reality in these buyer's minds. These purses were so well copied that it would have taken an expert to spot them as fakes, so why could they not do the same with coins? This also applies to "graded" Chinaman coins because of the fake holders being around, altho I know it is much harder to convincingly (no obvious signs or clues as to them being fakes) fake a coin than a purse.