Sinking Feeling In My Stomach...

I have a problem with that as well, but I figured that since the pictures he has up all have Replica stamps the coins would as well... If they do then I don't see reason for outrage. If they don't then report him to ebay and the Dept of Treasury.


Did you buy them knowing that they weren't marked and replicas?
Have you tried to pass them off as real?



First, my age has nothing to do with my question or my following statement, Nor does it have anything to do with my level of experience which is exactly what you were inferring. If you don't already know, I am 29, You could have found that out the same way I found out you are 48 (in your profile).

Second, I don't care how many years you spent staring at goats, If you think the only reason people buy these are to scam others later on then I guess you need to yell at Rebelman for a while. As well as my Jr. Highschool History Teacher Mr. Hayes, who brought in Replica Coins to use as teaching aides.

Lastly, As far as the Radar for counterfeit coins... There is one, however since the bulk of coins being counterfeited are obsolete and not made to be used as legal tender but instead to garner a premium as a collectible .. I don't think the Secret Service will care as much about them as they do about the State Sponsored Counterfeiting programs in Columbia and North Korea that print out $20 and $100 dollar bills. As well they really shouldn't be focused on coins as much as paper for those instances. And if a bill had a stamp that said "Replica" in an open field space that was the same size ratio as the Stamp shown on the coins the ebay seller has.. the Secret Service Wouldn't care, because they are sufficiently altered so as to not be passed as legal tender.



I would then put the onus on the buyer, the seller couldn't know exactly what the buyer had planned, it could be reasonably assumed that the buyer wanted to fill holes with coins that didn't have a copy/replica stamp until such time as he could get authentic coins.

The grading companies are combating that effectively by making the serial / barcode # searchable on their sites. Someone could request the seller provide a close up of the slab in order for the authenticity to be verified.

Wasn't their something just recently about pcgs or ngc adding pictures of the coins to the look up feature?

Pursuant to the Secret Service: http://www.secretservice.gov/money_law.shtml

"It's the Law

Manufacturing counterfeit United States currency or altering genuine currency to increase its value is a violation of Title 18, Section 471 of the United States Code and is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to 15 years, or both.

Possession of counterfeit United States obligations with fraudulent intent is a violation of Title 18, Section 472 of the United States Code and is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to 15 years, or both.

Anyone who manufactures a counterfeit U.S. coin in any denomination above five cents is subject to the same penalties as all other counterfeiters. Anyone who alters a genuine coin to increase its numismatic value is in violation of Title 18, Section 331 of the United States Code, which is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to five years, or both."

Cheetah's Comment: All U.S. Coinage, regardless of minting date, remains legal tender, and thus this guidance applies.

---

Pursuant to the Secret Service: http://www.secretservice.gov/faq.shtml#faq7

"What are the rules for the printing, publishing and illustration of U.S. currency?

The Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, Public Law 102-550, in Section 411 of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations, permits color illustrations of U.S. currency, provided:

1. The illustration is of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated
2. The illustration is one-sided and
3. All negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices, and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof are destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use

Title 18, United States Code, Section 504 permits black and white reproductions of currency and other obligations, provided such reproductions meet the size requirement. See the section on this website entitled Know Your Money for more information."

Cheetah's Comment: This guidance implies that reproduction of a currency note of equal dimensions and simply whispering REPLICA or COPY is illegal.

the fact that fakes are sweeping into the market place is why most of us are upset. Its not like they couldn't make these coins 10% larger and put replica or copy on them. Instead they make them in the best possible way to slip by the laws if they pass them as not marked replica's or copies.....Its ridiculous to support anything that allows the problem to have a foot hold........Complacency is the biggest problem when believing that the problem is so small its not worth the trouble until you spend your money!! I'm sure that the TPG's are working on there end of the fake holders.......but that doesn't help those who buy graded holder-ed coins from PCGS or NGC and ANAC to find out later they are forgeries......many buy in faith that the coins being bought are real, and not everyone is the expert as you presume we all are, even the best can have a hard time as seen in years past with the Heritage and other auction houses having sold many to find out LATER they are fakes.....Supporting the notion that its "ok" that people an make "exact copies" only INVITES what we have today in the market place........
I FORGOT..What was I thinking?......
IF they only would put REPLICA on the TPG'S FAKE SLABS then its all good......
And its easy to sit back and say look at that ebay listing...I bet they really get messed up on that deal...... And reply..."there such morons to bid anyway"......

The quoted text comes directly from the Secret Service website, and presumably, the Secret Service guidance derives from Title 18, Section 331 of United States Code and all revisions, references, and amendments thereof.

I am not a lawyer; and I did not specifically say anything, rather I quoted.

I have to disagree. IMO the number of people that buy these for legitimate reasons is a VERY small percentage of the total sales.

As a side note, I could justify sales of almost any item with the above argument. After all, as the seller I had no idea the buyer would _______________________ with the ____________ I sold them. You can fill in the blanks with whatever is appropriate.

I believe that is unreasonable. There are many, many fakes out there, and many people have been burned on these. However, there are not many counterfeits of relatively common coins. Throughout the years I've been collecting, I have only bought a couple of slabbed coins, and only for coins that I wanted to crack out to put in my album. I did not buy the slabs because it guaranteed the coin's authenticity. I do not know if you are or not, but if you are a new collector it is great that you buy from a local dealer. But there will come a time where there is a certain coin that you won't be able to find at your local shop, in which case you may have to rely on ebay or somewhere else. When and if that time comes, you should be able to spot a counterfeit example. And like I said, the vast majority of normal, common coins are genuine.

OK, here we sit again.....watching y'all debate this again........I was asked to write a "Guest Editorial" in Coin World. I did. I have no idea when it is going to be used. But when it is.....any of you reading it will know where I am coming from. Fighting/debating it here does nothing guys n girls. Go public.........get the press on it. It is your hobby and Numismatic Heritage which is getting jerked. You have to go main stream. As you can see....it only gets worse.