Should Properly Described Counterfeits Be Allowed On Ebay?

To elaborate;

I see antique dealers and others, not necessarily coin experts, list contemporary counterfeits not knowing what that have, and not attempting to pull a scam.
On the other hand there are the obvious chinese fakes, altered coins, etc. listed. Again, does the seller know? Who knows.

It all boils down to being an informed buyer.

I hate to see people bid on obvious fake 09 s vdbs etc, and when I see this sort of thing I report it. There is no market for chinese fakes or altered coins (or is is there?).

I was hoping to hear from someone who said no to this poll to find out why.

wireman09 You say:




Obviously, I don't agree that Contemporary Counterfeits have NO PART IN NUMISMATICS and I find that attitude personally insulting. They are a very legitimate area of numismatics and the history of circulating currency that have been studied for many 100s of years. I have been involved as a serious collector in this area for well over 50 years.

We are not talking items that are illegal. This is an area where ebay exceeds the rule of law considerably.

Remember what current ebay policy excludes - ALL COUNTERFEIT, ALL RESTRIKES, ALL REPLICAS and ALL COPIES. There are NO EXCEPTIONS even for coins sold at Heritage or Stacks for thousands of dollars or in a few cases MILLIONS of dollars. You would have to say every coin on the following list has NO PART IN NUMISMATICS because all of these are currently PROHIBITED. Yet many of the most historically significant coins in history make the list.

1804 US Silver Dollar (All 15 known examples of both types)
1913 V nickel
1933 St. Gauden's $20 Gold coin
All Russian Platinum Novodels
All MTTs not struck in 1780
All US Half Cent Restrikes date in the 1840s
The 1804 US Cent restrike of 1860
1896-O Morgan dollar VAM 4
1915 Austrian gold restrikes
The Scott restrike of the Confederate Half Dollar
Bashlow's restrike of the Confederate cent
The New Haven Restrikes of Colonial Coins
All Evasion coins of England and Ireland
Machin Mills Colonial coins and many other specific issues.
All of the Myriad of early Canadian "counterfeits"
All WAR effort forgeries of currency and coins
All ancient fourees
Most siege and necessity coins made before 1800.
And many, many, many other types.

You may not be aware of some key statistics:

1. Before 1857 10% or more of all coinage circulating in the US was counterfeit. In the colonial era the percentage was HIGHER.
2. Before 1850 in Canada at least 30% of all circulating copper coins were counterfeit.
3. In many countries in ancient times virtually ALL the coins that circulated were technically counterfeit.
4. Innumerable books, coin clubs and collectors are engaged in this area which you state has NO PART IN NUMISMATICS

And perhaps most importantly -

5. All of the contemporary counterfeits ever made have already been made. There are NO NEW ONES BEING MADE.

So I ask you again, How can you say that all of the coins listed above have NO PLACE IN NUMISMATICS? And as a follow-up, what possible threat exists to the hobby from coins that already exist, have been identified and are properly described as what they are?

The threat is Fraud in the form of Numismatic Forgeries made after 1950 and the junk forgeries still being made. They are a legitimate threat.

The only other threat is see in play is ignorance of the actual facts and composition of numismatics.

The problem is the definition of counterfeit.

To myself and many others, counterfeit means "purposefully deceptive to a modern audience". IE, a coin masquerading as another, when it is in fact, a modern copy or fake.

However, there are many grey areas of counterfeits that are genuine coins that hold a valid part of history.

Many of these examples have already been discussed, but contemporary counterfeit half pennies and reales (colonial issues) are no less a real coin than the regal examples.

I think it is a disservice to serious collectors to ban contemporary counterfeits.

I disagree. The problem is modern fakes.

Many 19th, 20th century major collections (and earlier) contained coins that were unofficially made and so fall into ebay's catch-all area of 'counterfeits'

To numismatists like swamperbob and others here, those are not a problem and a valid area of study. To the average ebay collector they aren't a particular problem either. There aren't huge numbers (and as sb also says, no more are being made) and they can still validly form part of a collection.




Yes. It's the things like Victorian Gothic crowns that were made last week, are worth melt but sell for much more that are a problem. They have no history, authenticity or, when revealed, collector interest.

The problem is that ebay's approach is not consistent.

On the one hand they ban all mention of counterfeit coins in the same way they ban rip-off Gucci goods.

But I have yet to have a listing for a modern replica coin pulled, even when I have supplied links to the self same copies on forgerynetwork.

I accept that the level of numismatics we're talking about required a degree of knowledge and experience to navigate. I don't know how ebay works, but I don't suppose most of their staff have any knowledge or interest in coins, so it's unfair to expect them to spot such things.

But ideally there needs to be some system where historic items of collector interest can be bought and sold but modern fakes will be pulled quickly.

Now it may be that ebay just can't cope, or isn't interested in the investment needed to set up such a system. But I'd like to see them try.

There are some critical facts that always must be kept in mind when thinking about ebay and its rules.

1. ebay is not supposed to have ANY expertise on staff. They provide a venue not an auctioneer's services which in any way validates what is being sold. The process of reporting and removing fraudulent auctions is an external function in which the coin collecting community has the policing role. This was a compromise solution made roughly 6 years ago between the collecting community (who that was I have no clear idea ?) and ebay.

2. The rules and laws as written need to be enforced with numismatic understanding and a degree of discretion. They really do not need to be altered significantly provided you actually read them and hear what is really being said.

3. The ONLY dangerous counterfeits and forgeries are the ones made in the recent past, those being made NOW and those that will be made in the future to deceive collectors and merchants.

4. Collectors WITH the proper knowledge are the only people who can effect a change in what appears on ebay. Seasoned collectors and numismatists are the only people with the knowledge to make the change. No ebay manager can do that.

5. The Numismatic definitions already exist - they just need to be understood and used correctly when discussing this topic.

To elaborate these points I want to begin with the last point first because it is the reason we do not see eye to eye.

Charles Larson in his landmark book "Numismatic Forgery" clearly defines the difference between Contemporary Circulating Counterfeits and Numismatic forgeries. Coins in these two categories were made for different groups of people at different times. The continued use of the term Counterfeit to describe both kinds of coins is at the heart of the problem.

Larson was of course addressing the issue as it relates to numismatics. In addition to the two types discussed by Larson are the Counterfeits which are prohibited by law. These are of NO major interest to coin collectors and rarely is any value whatsoever attached to these coins.

So we all really need to think in terms of 3 NON OVERLAPPING groups. Contemporary Circulating Counterfeits are coins that were made in the somewhat distant past. Numismatic Forgeries and Counterfeits are coins made in the recent past and the present. Numismatic forgeries are FRAUDS trying to pass as collector coins that are NOT monetized and Counterfeits are copies of presently monetized coins and are frauds when used in business.

The ONLY type that governmental agencies which police monetary crimes like the Secret Service are the Counterfeits. The Secret Service does not care about numismatic forgeries of non-monetary coins like the English Gothic Crown. They are interested in stopping counterfeiting ONLY.

Fraud is a crime that covers any situation where one party takes financial advantage of another by means of deception.

In 99.9% of cases, the problems on ebay involve FRAUD. There are very few cases occurring on ebay that would be of interest to the US Secret Service at all. COUNTERFEITING is NOT the real problem on ebay. The problem is fraud.

All sides of this discussion use terms in different ways and in the process confusion results. We need to stop being lazy when discussing or writing about the three kinds of coins that are not genuine.

pocket change 50 I think I can answer your question about coins versus other sections of ebay. But I can not answer your concerns. The section for Coins is a section set up for and exclusively covering collectable coins and numismatic collectables. Posting a "non coin" like the Tuvalu issues you refer to as a coin would clearly be wrong. But it is actually a form of exonumia by definition so it would be proper in such a section.

The same item is not actually a COPY or Counterfeit because it lacks the denomination. It is therefore easily avoided by any collector who cares to avoid it. If you do not know that, as any collector should, I can not find fault with ebay. I would place the blame squarely on the buyer.

Unless the seller misrepresents the item somehow in the description making it appear as something it is NOT, I can not see a basis for removal. A misrepresentation in any section of ebay would be a violation of the fraud statutes. It would be illegal and would be banned because it is a fraud.

Precisely how would you describe the item?

ArrowsAndRays I see the quote you are citing but I believe that the quote interprets the role of ebay as it was set up exactly backward. Let me see if I can explain why that is.

The sole purpose of being for ebay is to provide a venue for sales of all types of items. They created a set of rules that are purposely vague. The manager at ebay are NOT A POLICE force. They are not the experts on coins. We - all of us - who are collectors are the experts and the police force. We are the ones that can tell which items are collectable coins and which are NOT. That is why we are supposed to send in TPRs. Those are voted on by EMRs who are all professional numismatists.

So the key to policing ebay for problem coins is your responsibility and mine - not the managers at ebay. The same thing would apply to correcting improper descriptions or improper categorizations. The persons with a vested interest are collectors. At a coin show, do you have someone protecting you from faulty descriptions? At a flea market who protects you from buying a fake? In both cases YOU protect yourself. The fact is ebay is NO different. You are expecting too much from them and too little from yourself.

About all we can hope for is the termination of fraud and that will take diligent work by all of us.

I collect Mexican 8Rs dated between 1772 and 1898. Others among you have other areas where you are experts. What is needed is that all of us unselfishly give of our time to STOP fraud in our section and within our own area of expertise. Together we can do it - alone we are all spinning our wheels.