A Warning For New Collectors Of Counterfeit Varieties

That's awesome! Is this a new invention or something I've somehow missed?

BStrauss3 Why can't I have it the LEGAL way? The correct way? The way in which no fraud takes place?

The ebay rule as written is simply dead WRONG - they are prohibiting a legal type of item ONLY when it is correctly described while allowing rampant fraud in cases where the seller is a bald faced liar.

If the seller had not stated the coins were forgeries - exactly how many people would have known. I did but I have spent over 50 years learning how.




I would never sell a Contemporary Counterfeit on ebay - Stacks is a far better venue. However, I love buying counterfeits on ebay. I average 20-50 per MONTH. In the past ten years I have actually bought about 2,500 COUNTERFEIT coins on ebay intentionally.

My beef is with the ebay rules and with anyone that accepts ebay rules at face value as if ebay ever did anything that benefited the collecting community. The ebay bottom line is first and foremost; you could say it is the ONLY interest of ebay. They stopped the Coin Committee because we were removing too many FRAUDS. The sellers involed - largely the Chinese and Spanish sellers of frauds complained that we were removing too many of their sales and suspending too many IDs. The ebay bottom line lost $1,000,000 in revenue in the period from March 2013 to 2014 from the suspension of these fraudulent coins. Who did ebay side with? The organized counterfeiters and fraudsters using stolen bank accounts and multiple linked phony IDs.

That is why I never report anything but FRAUDS to ebay for termination and I suggest that everyone does the same. Nothing whatsoever was gained by stopping these three legal items. Someone reported them and that person should be ashamed.

Submitting a report on a seller who describes his items correctly so that there is NO FRAUD in the sale is really pathetic in my opinion. It is behaving like a grade school tattle-tale. Someone you want to slap up side the head.

Did the do-gooder making the report even tell the seller BEFORE reporting him/her. I DOUBT IT. There is no gotcha effect that way. Why help out someone when you can stab them in the back. I have ZERO respect for that.

Just in case you don't know, if ebay actually wanted to stop these identified items - they could do so with an internal word search BEFORE the auction was ever posted. It could be done automatically in seconds. It simply has never been done. Why? Let me guess no $$$$$$$ for ebay!

If you see an obviously cleaned coin that a seller says is pristine - REPORT IT.

If you see a formerly TPG details slabbed coin that has been broken out and posted for sale as GEM - REPORT THE FRAUD.

If you see a Numismatic Forgery made after 1973 posted with no warning and without COPY - report it.

If you see an altered coin, filled hole, chased fields, etc. posted with no warning report it.

I often reported between 100 and 200 items per day that were FRAUDS while I was on the committee.

But I guess that reporting real fraud takes too much effort to uncover and so reporting someone who is just trying to describe an item accurately is an easy target for the playground tattle-tale type. They must also like shooting fish in a barrel.

bobby131313 : thanks for the tool, it's excellent :)

PawnS You totally missed my point. Contemporary Circulating Counterfeits are nothing like Gucci bags at all which are illegal Modern Counterfeits.




Your statement is uninformed and DEAD WRONG. You need to study the actual issue and legalities involved before you draw foolish conclusions.

You have bought into the ebay position and you my friend are hurting me and all of the other collectors of counterfeit coins as historical items.

Do you report TPG encapsulated fourees? They are counterfeits.

Do you report Machin Mills half pence? They are counterfeits.

Do you report Evasion Colonials? They are Counterfeits.

Concentrate you efforts on actual fraud not - imaginary potential fraud.

Why were the listings removed, did ebay pull them I wonder?

It definitely was not ebay alone. They take NO action unless an outside party reports the item. So someone had to contact them. The ebay managers at the time the committee was disbanded were changed to people who had no knowledge of coins whatsoever and they were taking NO action on their own.

I don't think I would condemn all forgeries. There are some coins I will never own because of rarity and expense. I would however love to carefully examine a BU Flowing Hair Silver Dollar. The fact that it is a forgery wouldn't bother me at all. I own a beautiful 1793 8 Reales and chose not to put it up on CCF simply because I don't really care if it turns out to be a forgery. I paid about $100 for it from an honest ebay dealer and have already gotten my moneys worth. It's one of my most favorite coins. I bought a one oz. Silver Bullion of the Seated Liberty Design and the design art work is BREATHTAKING! As long as you know (or don't care) that you're not buying the real thing, where's the harm? I also have a two-tailed Washington quarter in my collection which, I'm pretty sure, is not authentic, but the craftsmanship is amazing and it makes me smile! I wouldn't want to see anyone taken advantage of either. Common sense dictates that you ask the right questions prior to deciding to buy and determine ahead of time what you will spend. IMHO there are already enough rules about what we should or shouldn't do. We don't need any more. Jack