Reported These Fantasy Replicas To Ebay, But ....

I say me:
I have read about California gold being faked for most of my numismatic experience.
That experience extends to over 40 years.
I don't like slabs, but in this case, it is just about the only way you can go, unless you buy from a dealer who has expertise in this area.

Read the fine print which states: "Beautiful coin. Great piece of history. If only the coin could talk ..."

The "great piece of history" part suggests that these are contemporary to the dates upon them, 1850's. Truth is, if they could talk, they'd tell us about being souvenirs in 1960-80's tourist traps; this, between singing songs by the Beatles!

Hi Denco7. Sorry if I sounded contentious ... purely unintentional. I do tend to get upset about offerings such as these. Also note that this seller calls these tokens/coins "fractional." There is not even the typical illusion of any denomination on these! They are a fraction of what, may I ask? Typically, there exists a fraction like 1/4 or 1/2, sans dol. or dollar.

I've read and studied many an early, pre-1960's coin book, magazine, periodical, auction catalog, you-name-it, and have yet to encounter any mention of these pieces. To my knowledge, they were non-entities until the late 60's, at best. These were often sold in carded sets, like type sets, round/octagonal. I began seeing those in the 1970's.

A few years ago, I witnessed a number of these sell at a local antique auction. I advised the auctioneer, a man who new nothing about coins or my credibility, that they were neither gold nor contemporary to the dates that they were marked. He admitted to the bidders that he knew nothing about them and sold them "as is." The average price paid exceeded $200, each! IMHO, transactions like this and the ebay marketing of these hurt the hobby ...

One has only to look in a Red Book under "California Gold" to learn about these.

Thanks ExoGuy, for the info, I have an acquaintance who is also on a mission to see these regulated and taken out of mainstream coin auctions. I have learned quite a bit about the history of these in the last year or so. So many different incarnations of these, from the real California Gold fractionals, to jewelers tokens which are real gold , just not California Gold fractionals to the gold plated (no discernible amount of gold)brass tokens , some of which have been traced back to the late 1800's.

Unfortunately these people pay real money for these things in their collections, thinking it is real California gold and never know that it is brass.

Sadly, it is in ebay's financial interest to let these deceptive ads go. Increased revenues trumps all other priorities. Years ago you could circumvent ebay administrators and contact bidders directly to warn them about fraud and deception in sellers' ads. They put a stop to that by removing the ability of members to contact other members directly. I contacted ebay many times about fraud in ads for postage stamps, and they looked the other way every time.