Well, it going to get a bit rough out there now. The 'slabs' in the above video are roughly the same shape and size of the NGC slab, but the edge of the fakes don't have a 'reeded' or crenelated edge - so that is something to look for too.
Fake slabs have been around for awhile, but recently the fakes slabs have been growing in the market place. PCGS has been the main target by the Chinese counterfeiters because because most of their holder coins do not have photos on the cert lookup. The new collector can protect themselves from counterfeits by buying from a reputable dealer, and buying coins that have photos to compare on the cert lookup. Unfortunately, the counterfeit coins and counterfeit plastic are getting better, and the counterfeit slabs enable the counterfeiter to sell their coins for more money. PCGS and NGC have contributed to their slabs being counterfeited by not posting high quality photos of coins on the cert lookup.
PCGS are still asking for an extra $ for the photo, and the coins with the photo are worth a little more. Everyone wants to have their online collection of photos available in their collection.
One criticism of the video is that they emphasize "buy the coin, not the holder", but then say nothing about how to identify fake coins. When they compared one of the NGC fakes with the online image, all they focused on was that the holders were different types. They could have emphasized that the fake coin was clearly not the same coin as the image. They did get their point across for people who had no idea that there are fake slabs.
Quote: The photos are so bad that it is impossible to understand that the coin was replaced.
On Morgan's the hubs were made in Philadelphia and working dies were sent to the local mint to put in the date and mint mark.
The counterfeiters can have a similar problem as they are often working with one hub and changing mint marks and dates. On Morgan's when trying to detect counterfeits, a good place to start is the date and mint mark.
On the 1879 CC above look at the position of the CC on the fake and genuine example and the CC position is clearly different. The counterfeiters to save money used the same reverse CC die on a number of different dates.
Quote: On Morgan's the hubs were made in Philadelphia and sent to the local mint to put in the date and mint mark.
What is your source on that? I don't think it's correct. Philadelphia had control over all die making functions until the Denver Mint opened their own die making shop in 1996. Otherwise it's true that the fakers use the same obverse and reverse many times and just change the date. Many fakes are easily outed if you know the series, because they use the wrong types for the year, or the mint mark is the wrong style or position, etc.
Van Allen writes, " In making the Morgan working dies, the date digits and the mint mark for dies to be used at the branch mints were punched in by hand before the dies were polished and hardened". It is my understanding that the local branch punched in the date and mint mark polished the dies and hardened them.
I think you're misinterpreting that. "A major turning point for hub and die production in the U.S. Mints came in the summer of 1996 when the Denver Mint opened its own die making shop. Prior to this, all aspects of the die making process were done exclusively at the Philadelphia Mint."
The branch mints didn't have the capability to anneal the dies, they didn't have punches, etc. The dies were tightly controlled by Philadelphia. Branch mints were required to return all the dies and each January you'll find die destruction records from the previous year.
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Posted 05/26/2023 2:38 pm
