Wow ! Gotta See This.

Thanks Sap

This will have a serious effect on the coin collecting community! Raw coins now may seem a much safer investment for those willing and able to do proper research. It seems that the TPG companies might be able to install encrypted micro chips in the shells. What do others think?
afernbaugh

What we owe them has not changed, Bryan, unless they purchase more. What those dollars will buy is dropping like a rock.

Jim

I've got a solution, don't collect anything that is worth faking. I've got oodles of common date coins and feel totally comfortable that they're all real. Prices of coins, both real or fake, rely on the law of supply and demand. The Chinese are messing with the supply side, we can hit back by changing the demand side.

Hey Jays-Dad I suppose your suggestion uis one worth pursuing.

Why don't we just flood their country with counterfiet Chinese currency?

Give them a taste of their own medicine.
We could print so much phoney paper it would be crazy.
They would have to use a wheelbarrow to carry the cash for a loaf of bread!

I had one of my own products counterfeited ( no numismatic) by a firm out of China. In the end the some consumers figured out it was bogus but there was little or no way to tell how much they put on the market or how we could stop them. It had an impact on our sales and was not to fun to deal with.
Information is key. Buy only what you know and if its to good to be true it probably is.

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joeb907 asked:
just wondering, what are the coins made out of?

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As I said before, it depends on whom they're trying to fool, but the short answer is, "the cheapest thing that will do the job".

The cheap, shoddy Chinese replicas you can buy by the containerload for $1 each, are made of whatever cheap, shoddy alloy they can get their hands on. Normally some kind of brass that's been silver-washed or, more accurately, mercury-washed. Not entirely safe, but the health and safety of their workers and the people who buy their "coins" isn't high on their agenda. These coins are often underweight, because the alloy used is nowhere near as dense as silver.

The ones designed to fool a close, in-hand inspection are often made of a lead-tin alloy that has the same density as silver, only much cheaper. It even "sounds silvery" when rung or dropped. The colour often isn't quite right, so they may be given a silver wash. If the dies are good, the only way to tell them from a silver coin would be by chemical analysis (eg. XRF).

Their highest quality fakes are, of course, made from silver, of the same weight and fineness as the real thing. It's only worthwhile for them to do this for coins where the numismatic value is far higher than the bullion value. Such a coin could only be detected by trace elemental analysis: measuring the impurities in the metal and comparing the results to see if this "chemical fingerprint" matches real coins. Of course, if they melt down genuine common date coins and use the metal to restrike scarce dates, even this technique may not work.