Uncle LUC, and others
I would love to see a
real one also.
I have seen and held in my hands a fake in a side ally shop off Granville Rd in Hong Kong.
Plus
many others are there. You name them. and NOT only Canadian fakes!Also medals.
MM is correct on all levels, but he is very conservative with his words.
And, to boot, their newest fakes are extremely good. Much better then the 5 and 10 year old fakes.
I did a test in our coin club a few months ago.
I did NOT tell the members that one of the images was of a forgery!!
I used images of 3 different 1948 silver dollars, high resolution and sharp images, both sides and projected them as sets, Obv and Rev on one image next to each other, one after the other on to a large screen. I handed out a small form which asked the following questions:
A please grade coin A, coin B and coin C. and comment on your grade. (
here you had the chance to say it is a fake, by simply not grading it)
Each coin was up, one after the other, on the screen for as long as needed. NO rush.
After that I put up a large image
of all 3 coin sets together so all could be seen together. Remember, the forms were marked by then and NO changes were allowed.
B The last questions was:
If you had the funds, which of these 3 1948 dollars would you buy?
Surprise: 21 out of 33 club members would have bought the fake! All reasonably experienced coin collectors! many of them actually owned 48s. Now the big guess: is mine a fake?
After it was all tallied, we looked at the triple set again. Suddenly the light went on....
Unless you have a real coin one next to a fake, it will be often difficult even for a
TPG to differentiate between real and fake. Fakes have been slabbed and have been sold at large auctions. And some have been imported
already slabbed, ready to go!
The very apparent problems are this:
1
RCM does not care one bit in reality, even though they say otherwise. It does NOT cut into their profits as trhe real collectors market is not their market.
But just wait until the new wave starts with the 20/20 etc garbage and all the snake and lions coins etc, etc,. PRoC is, and will continue, having a hay day.
2 the RCMP openly admits that they can not go after 1 or 2 coins. they say they have no money to do that, even though they would have to follow up if someone complains. Solution?: complain to your MP!!! ( if you can locate him / her). When MM "sort of lost his primary ally " Seargant Tony F., he was sort of alone with his fight.
3 it is CBSA ( customs) responsibility to enforce the import laws. But did you ever get asked this or similar when you returned to Canada from the orient: are you carrying any counterfeit money?
I bet a plastic dollar that you did not get asked. It would be just much tooooo simple to have another question printed on the customs card, like: did you acquire any forged monies while out of the country?
4 scruple less dealers and
ebay sellers who dish up stories and claim they have NO idea.
MM, if you can add, or correct me , please do so. Your input is valid and does count a lot!!
Note: If any coin club members would want these images to do a demo at your club, just PM me. I will do my best to get it to you.