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 Replies: 33 / Views: 6,109 |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
5362 Posts |
Just to update a bit.
The buyer did not want the coin. So I get it at my original bid price.
Now I will be able to answer definitively about the coin itself. I also plan to get an XRF test done soon (probably in February) to see what it is made of.
I will also get to examine that funny reversed swastika (fake chop) closely.
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Pillar of the Community
France
1591 Posts |
I long to read the outcome :D
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1757 Posts |
Bob -
Be careful ... XRF analysis is like liquor and cigarettes ... it can be very addictive and EXPENSIVE! LOL
JPL
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Valued Member
Germany
194 Posts |
Shame on me! I was only looking at the fantasy Morelos counterstamp and completely missed the mint mark! I guess this is because I haven't been following ebay much lately due to the fact that I don't really specialize in fakes, which seems to be their forte nowadays  My first idea following this thread was the same that Austrowiki had - that maybe the forger of the counterstamp altered the coin. But it does not make sense. What the producer of the Morelos c/s needed was a host coin, and he could have found a Mexican one easily and without premium over the Lima coin. So why bother with the work of altering a Lima coin, even if only the mint mark and not the assayer? It should be noted, however, that the two excellent sources Bob provides (although they seem to be computing the same data from the same sources) do NOT make a difference between mint marks! They differentiate between Mexican (i.e. cap and rays) and Spanish or Carolus dollars (i.e. portrait dollars). For anybody interested in the Bailey/Zhou paper, here's the direct link: https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/wbb...June2009.pdfComing back to our coin: the mint mark was undoubtedly altered from Lima to Mexico, and there is little logic why this should have been done by the person who made the Morelos counterstamp fantasy. Yes, there were premiums paid for bust dollars over Mexican dollars over regular silver. But we would need more documentary evidence that there were premiums paid for portrait dollars from Mexico over Portrait dollars from other Spanish Colonial mints to irrefutably prove Bob's point (given the fact that he apparently condemned hundreds of such coins, which could have been considered circumstancial evidence, to the melting pot in the 1960s...). |
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Pillar of the Community
France
1591 Posts |
Just noticed that the seller was the one I posted a notice on yesterday.
That guy is indeed selling crap, but it seems he may also sell contemporary counterfeits (and genuine stuffs as well)
(the notice was about him selling coins he didn't owned ...)
Edited by MathieuMa
11/17/2014 09:00 am
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Valued Member
Germany
194 Posts |
In any case you should be careful, Bob!
"The buyer does not want the coin" sounds like shill bidding to me - the seller just wanted to know how much you were really willing to go.
What I hear from the Mexican numismatic community on this guy: nobody seems to be knowing his real name, he most likely is not from Durango, and he successfully bid on some coins in Angel Smith's auction but never paid.
Edited by dosmundos
11/17/2014 09:26 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1757 Posts |
What is interesting and all this is my opinion - in many ways Mexican Numismatics as a whole collecting area has just started to take hold again IMO as the next new HOT area to collect (i.e., Spanish/American Colonials). Some people from U.S. Colonials collecting days are starting to see the light ... anyway with the new MNA organization, Bailey's new multi-volume book just starting to come out, etc... contemporary counterfeits are still feared by dealers and many collectors in this current state of affiars for this sector of collecting due to its infancy. Take this back 20 years ago when the Colonial Coin Collectors Club (C4) and the American Numismatic Society started writing about Machins Mills and other George/Irish counterfeits from GII and GIII of England has created over the years a whole new collecting area of high demand. The current world record for the top English Halfpence is the late Mike Ringo's Banana Nose piece ~ $17,500. Yes for one counterfeit British halfpence over $17K - see (Stacks/Americana Sale: 2008). Mexican Collectors and dealers still don't realize these counterfeits in the GNL book are a WIN/WIN situation as collectors will EVENTUALLY like to have these as association pieces in their collections. They are historical, interesting and FUN! Just let nature takes it course as with British and Irish Counterfeit Halfpence of George II and George III. More often than not these counterfeits are worth MORE than the regals (i.e., legitimate mint issues). GNL Type 1's are collectible! True - I do only have (1) China Market Type 2 in my collection --- IMO these are to be avodied other than maybe (1) study piece if its been verified by XRF. Food for thought ... a WIN/WIN situation ... with TIME. JPL |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
dosmundos Thank you for your concern. Usually a shill bidder who is to attempting to secure a specific price range for a fake coin will bid before the close of the auction and repeat bidding to drive up the price in tiny increments. Here the original auction came down to two snipers myself and someone with a HIGHER feedback who bid ONCE. That pattern was not what we were use to seeing in cases of shill bidding. There were 6 bidders and 12 bids - a fellow with 2717 feedbacks was the bid repeat bidder with 5 bids and a high of $200 which was made in the last 30 minutes. The high bidder has 4089 feedbacks. I can no longer get the ID names for bidders or I would have in this case. I suspect another counterfeit collector was involved. The procedure used by the seller (he used ebay to make the sale to me) is not typical of the sellers we used to catch using fraud to secure high sale prices. To use this feature with a coin used to require that a traceable payment was made followed by a refund also traceable. The procedure for non-payment was not used (not enough time). Then and only then could the coin be offered to me. I know that there are many people bidding on fakes who then do not honor their bids. I do not condone that practice unless a numismatic fraud is involved.
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Pillar of the Community
France
1591 Posts |
swamperbob : this could also be a bidder trying to drive that guy out, winning all the bids ...
Some were thinking of doing that yesterday, as that same seller was selling coin he for sure never owned (2000 usd for a Vargas which sold in public auction over 10000, 500 USD for a struck silver morellos 8 reales which reached over 2000 USD ...).
Hope it was not the case here :)
For once, there is a good chance he owns the fake coins he lists, as he received feedbacks for those (unlike the other coins cited above).
I just hope he won't disappear with the rest (now that he sold his expensive coins he never possessed, notice how all his other auctions disappeared prior to their date limit ...)
Edited by MathieuMa
11/18/2014 08:57 am
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Valued Member
Germany
194 Posts |
Exactly my point. This guy took down all his auctions the moment his "pictures of very rare coins" got sold.
I guess this account won't be around for very long anymore...
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
I of course hope he actually owned and has shipped the coin as claimed but at least it was all done via ebay so the cost is covered. Regarding the data sources for the two volumes I cited - they use similar and at times overlapping sources because there is minimal recorded data available. Perhaps future researchers will uncover more but that is conjecture. The Bailey reference uses the Shanghai records (English Sources) primarily the "North China Daily News" which gives a detailed account of the premium. However, he also adds to that the San Francisco Chronicle records which cover 35 years of records that are US based. The Depeyrot record uses only the UK sources - the "North China Daily News". The use of Opium as Commodity Money alluded to by Bailey is a UK position - it worked for them. However, the US lacked a source of opium to ship to China for payment. After the Opium Wars (ca 1860) the problem was a US problem that the UK did not have. The Bailey report was done to test the thesis (using economic formulas) to see if they could find a market based reason for the extremely high premium paid for Carolus Dollars. If you read the whole report (I had to read it several times because they are approaching the issue for different, non-numismatic, reasons and they used terms I am not 100% comfortable with) I believe it shows clearly that rates for Mexican Dollars (C&R) and US Trade dollars tended to follow "expected" or "predicted" rules of ecconomics. The Carolus Dollars did not follow the predicted rates as closely and at the end of the report Bailey actually speculates on possible answers as to why this happened. Bailey comes up with no satisfactory answer. Bailey did postulate (with no proof) that there was NO NEW SOURCE of these coins for the interval under study. Bailey believed that there was a LIMITATION on total supply based on the original pre-1810 mintages. That belief is in my opinion the source for why he saw the Carolus dollar as NOT following predicted trends. I took this as a confirmation that at least something out of the ordinary happened regarding the supply of Carolus coins. I believe things always happen for a reason and that a new supply of Carolus coins could result in price drops where increases would normally be predicted. Work on this thesis could help. But I am at this point a one arm paper hangar who has a limited background in theoretical economics. I did locate and mentioned in the book a third source that has examined the issue of the premium from an alternative viewpoint (the author has a background in religious practices). Cornelius Conover's work "The Imaginary Peso: Imagistic Strategies of Nineteenth Century Mexican Coins" postulates the premium was a simple preference for the Carolus Dollar as a valid standard and did not represent the actions of a "backward people" that had been proposed by Ackerman and carried forward into Don Taxay's book on the US mint. Regarding the preference for Mexico as a mint - my research with the statements of the forger who made the 1805 8R in my possession and the fact that altered LIMAE mint marks exist and I worked from there. Perhaps the references to the preference are weaker than the overall argument for the premium but they are there. Unfortunately some of my earlier notes regarding written sources were not properly annotated (some were 40 plus year old notes) but I am hunting for those now. I just re-read the book and I agree that what I have presented has a hole in the logic trail as expressed. I do know however, that at one time I did have more documentary support I just have to find it again. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
It did not take long at all using Google to find substantial support for the theory that Mexican Carolus Dollars predominated trade. That position is so pervasive among the Chinese economists that it is virtually foregone.
One tactic in debate is to challenge all facts even commonly accepted truisms to divert the opponent into a time wasting effort of searching for needed citations.
Anyone interested in the preference for Mexican issues over those of Bolivia needs to read the works of Stephen Tai, Chang Huei Hsin, Peng Hsin Wei, Zhuang Guo Tu, Ken Pomerantz, Bin Wong, Paul Krugman, Kallie Szczepanski and Billy K.L. So. If these experts do not convince any unbiased researcher of the Chinese preference for Mexican Dollars and the forces that produced the copies - nothing will.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
The case is complete. The seller mailed the coin the day I paid and provided a Mexican Postal Tracking number. I waited until the end of the estimated delivery interval and started asking where is the coin. The seller did not reply to any of several letters I sent. I got ebay involved by filing a non-receipt report and they confirmed that the Tracking Number supplied by the seller was a fraud. The refund was made INCLUDING postage charges. So I would say the seller is out the fees on the auction and if the others how claimed he did not send coins all follow suit - he will soon be toast on ebay. |
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Valued Member
Germany
194 Posts |
I suppose he withdrew the money from the PayPal account as quickly as it got in, and well before ebay could block and reclaim the funds of the several buyers (remember that your case was not the only one). So the guy has made off with a lot of money, and PayPal can now go chasing somebody in Mexico who most probably does not even exist under that name. Well, ebay had their fair chance of stopping it before they got stuck with the losses. several people reported it. So who cares... Just too bad you didn't get this highly interesting counterfeit, though. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
I agree - it would have been a great one for study.
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Posted 11/15/2014 7:20 pm
