List Of Authentic Ebay Sellers Of Coins I Found

I figure that producing a convincing counterfeit is a very expensive operation and the only way to make it cost effective is to produce fakes of coins that ordinarily cost hundreds of dollars. It stands to reason that you should never buy a very expensive coin from ebay. Either use a well known dealer like APMEX (or your country's equivalent) or buy directly from a mint.

Certifying coins is an American phenomenon. It doesn't really happen on this side of the ocean.

Alright, Basebal, you win. But beware. We British aren't all smiles and sunshine.....

There are TONS of reliable coin dealers on ebay. I would take WAY too long to make a complete list.

Not necessarily so, Demarco. A while back there was a run of modern repros of shillings of Charles I on ebay and other sites. They weren't rare and sold for between £15 and £60, mostly to people who weren't experts on the series.

Not that they weren't good copies. I was even fooled a couple of times. But I keep good records and when you see what appears to be the identical hammered coin appear again and again .. you get suspicious.

I dare say they were made for more than pennies. But a steady income of £40s every now and then (there were five different coins replicated, possibly by a company in the US) gradually builds up.

The point being, people want to check out a £250-£500 coin. Whereas a hammered coin (which all have their own quirks, so are more difficult to compare) selling for under £50 is much less likely to raise suspicion. To the extent at least one major auction house had one listed as part of a lot. And once that happens, well, who's going to question if it comes up on ebay as ex ...&Co, with a pic of the catalogue listing?

I sell stuff on ebay from time to time, and my name is not on your list--for shame!!

You gotta give ebay their due credit: a (relatively) cheap system for anyone to list items in a simple straightforward format, and to get potential buyers from the world over to look at your item, is a brilliant and a runaway-successful idea. In other words, how else might I sell a rare French coin to a Japanese collector, than via what is--for better or for worse--the easiest way to do so online today? I'm all for competitors (traditionally strong, coin-dedicated institutions like Heritage Auctions or other) but as a private individual buying and selling relatively modest-dollar items I'm not going to consign with the "big boys" am I?

As for avoiding fakes, that's up to each buyer to be educated, select wisely, buy only from sellers who accept returns, scrutinize photos as best you can and/or ask for more, and to--in a pinch--back away if there's a doubt. Just because something has been made easier to do from your couch in your jammies, doesn't mean you should switch off the gray matter! It should also be acknowledged that the online-coin situation is very different from that encountered at shows; if collectors don't stay abreast of values and prices at shows in addition to the hysteric-prone online buying communities then those collectors are probably spending too much.

lol Ben, yeeah should have been smiles and rain