Let's Start A Fake World Coin Seller Thread!

Which of the coins do you recognize as fakes?

I'd really be interested in what it was about the coins that gave them away.

Thanks.

Very hard to pick good fakes from pictures only,

BUT

They all look to be in exactly the same level of condition, don't they?


With coins of this value I ALWAYS like to see them in hand first, unless you personally know the seller, or the seller has the highest of reputations.

Without the real coin to compare it with the fake could easily fool a lot of people. Me for instance.

However with real coin as reference I can see large differences in the portrait and the lion, even the crossed hammers.

Based on the biding it appears to be a low value coin. Why would someone go to all the trouble of faking it?

Here's another fake on eBay--an 1846 Speciedaler--where the diagnostics for the mintmark are an obvious red flag.
The date is also poorly done--look at the shape of the "8".

I agree that the Private seller thing is a huge warning siren but I'm surprised that the fakers still actually use it. Bidders names are surpressed anyway and are uncontactable. I can only surmise that they use it to mask shill bidding.

Thanks Swamperbob! A lot of collectors here benefit from your expertise--especially with Spanish colonial coins.

Here's another fake of a Norway 1 Kr type that's getting bid up on ebay. The can be different coins and years, but they all have very similar 'wear' patterns on the king's portrait, as shown below. Compared to a real Kroner, the absence of protected details are probably the best diagnostic.

I have personally reported over 30 auctions involving that same coin in the past 30 days - all but two were cancelled and I can not figure out why those two are still up.

This one of the BAD FAKES I refer to as junk. It is utterly worthless (unless it is pure nickel as they were some time ago). It is also the kind of coin that no serious collector should believe could possibly be real - the design is hideous for 1882.

I know there is a lot of variation in the 8R series BUT NOT BY 1882. People need to keep their heads screwed on straight and just ignore these auctions.

I have an ebay hit-list of a dozen or so bad fakes (junk) that I think need to be reported. Most of the others DO NOT. But certainly NO early Contemporary Circulating Counterfeits are not on that list. I follow several big auction houses and European bidders are far more sophisticated in relation to collecting counterfeits that have a significant history behind them. Rare contemporary counterfeits routinely sell (for some countries like Russia) above $500.

I also have a problem with bidders who place high bids on anything they recognize as counterfeit and then refuse to honor their bids. I know that may sound odd, because these people think they are protecting someone. But if one of these junk copies starts at 99 cents and a new counterfeit collector wants one for fun - why run up the price for someone who would be interested for educational purposes?

I have a pet peeve against people who run up counterfeit coins with no intent to buy because counterfeits are what I am interested in. In one case my $500 snipe was topped and the high bidder then refused to pay. The seller then comes to me asking if I want to honor my bid! If that idiot had not bid - I would have won the coin for under $50 instead I had a hard time getting the coin for $200.

So that "nice guy" cost me $150. They obviously only knew the coin was a counterfeit - they had no idea what it really was. A little bit of information can often cause a lot of problems.

In the case of this 1882, the seller knows because I wrote to him as well as the ebay review committee.