Any Thoughts Or Advice On This?

You know it's funny cause I have a feeling he knows they are counterfeit. In his Craigslist post he says he just wants to get the $100 per coin he paid for them in the first place. He probably feels pretty lame for dropping $300 on them and, unfortunately, would probably rather scam someone else rather than send them in to the SS or destroy them so someone else doesn't get shafted.

Hehe, no need: I have a stack of 12 of each of these three counterfeits and could identify them blindfolded, in the dark with my fingertips.

There is a glut of them on the market right now, all over Craigslist and even the local cash-for-gold shops get nailed with a few here and there, hidden amongst genuine coins in larger lots.

No just possessing them isn't illegal (but you do have to turn them over if they ask for them. Refusing to do so IS illegal.), but offering them for sale is illegal.

The Trade dollar was demonitized in the 1870's or 80's, but it's legal tender status was later restored in 1933 and reaffirmed in the coinage act of 1965. And while they take counterfeiting seriously, they focus almost all of their attention on the counterfeiting of paper currency and almost exclusively on the current currency.

It is perfectly legal to sell them, too, provided they're sold *as counterfeits* and not genuine numismatic items.

If you're the manufacturer or importer, you also must mark them with "COPY." (However it's advisable to mark whatever counterfeits you own conspicuously anyways, as heaven forbid they're stolen from you, or they're inherited by your heirs without any knowledge of what they truly are.)




I have several fake PCGS holders in my collection, and have seen plenty of counterfeits actually slabbed by PCGS, too.

Education is the key here. Nothing else will do.

I have only heard of a hand full of counterfeits that have been slabbed by any legit TPG. Usually they are not even known to be counterfeit until after the fact when some specialist actually brings the counterfeits into the light. I have never seen any counterfeits in a real TPG holder that wouldn't fool even most experienced collectors and dealers alike

They are unusual to begin with, but then again so is collecting counterfeits. I suppose that my "plenty of" (within the context of being a counterfeit collector) is relative to that. :-)

Where I've seen a few fake Trade dollars and about a dozen 1896/1900/1902 Micro-O Morgans in PCGS slabs (the latter, formally "recalled," as it were), I've also seen PCGS mistakes in world coins. swamperbob has a bunch of world coin mistake photos in his threads I'm sure he can share.

My point is that even TPGs are human and make mistakes. The average submission is only looked at by a grader for a relative few moments, and it's a constant game of cat and mouse.




Aye, the crux of the matter more has to do with the clause directly before that which mentions two classes: manufacturers and importers. The HPA was originally written with the intention to stop the production of unmarked fake coins on domestic soil and prevent importing them from abroad, not to get collectors in trouble. :-)

Where I sincerely love and encourage the idea of expanding the HPA, I actually find it difficult to support HR-5977 as it's currently written as it could put a large number of collectors in serious trouble.

The first example that comes to mind is that without some fine-tuning, one could be prosecuted for selling contemporary counterfeits without marking them "COPY," which would seriously damage established numismatic value for legitimate numismatic items. :-(

Another portion of the Act, as written, that makes me exceedingly worried is:




"Consciously avoids knowing" is an abusable oxymoron and is a phrase that has no place in law, period. In court you'd have to prove that someone *knows* that they *don't know* something that they *know.*

It needs to be re-written more elegantly without the potential for serious legal tomfoolery.

In truth, everything that this Act tries to "tighten up on" is already covered in Federal laws concerning fraud. If you represent that a coin is genuine when you know it's fake, and you sell it as a genuine item, you're punishable under the law. Period. As the Act is currently written it would only add unnecessary redundancy and open up honest people to criminal charges. :-(