Is This Clearly A Fake? Slabbed German Silver Coin Graded MS

There appear to be some extra toning patches the coin has somehow managed to pick up (the ones in front of the queen's nose are the most prominent) but it otherwise appears to be a perfect match for the coin on the PCGS database. So I'd say genuine coin, in genuine holder.

I'd agree that I personally would not call it MS; nor, I suspect, would most collectors in Germany. It's also clear to me to have old cleaning. Apparently it's market-acceptable, or they wouldn't have graded it.

There certainly have been instances where fake slabs with perfectly acceptable cert numbers have been made. It's getting the fake coin in the fake slab to exactly match the picture that's in the PCGS databse that is tricky, since PCGS itself took the picture of the coin while it was in their possession. And these two pictures match to at least nine decimal places.

They could, I suppose, reproduce both the PCGS holder and the actual coin, right down to almost-perfectly-matching the pattern of toning and the dents and scratches in exactly the same places. After all, anything man can create, man can duplicate. Or one could even postulate a scenario where PCGS' database was hacked and the picture of the genuine coin replaced with a picture of the fake. But Ockham's Razor says the more probable answer is that the two coins (the one in the ebay link and the one in the PCGS database) are one and the same object, and that object is as it was originally slabbed by PCGS.

sg93....

Yes I agree. This coin appears to match the grading description that PCGS offer on their website.

Let's not forget that an MS grade, up to MS 64 - even over, is still not a "perfect coin".

Also scratches in photos depending on the light angle and in which direction the scratches were made can sometimes appear more prominent than when seeing the coin in hand.

Photos can be deceptive - enhancing the grade or diminishing the grade.

Germans rarely grade German state coins - thalers, as Stempelglanz = uncirculated. Usually what is found is a term similar to almost uncirculated which translates to an MS 61 or above.

German grading tends to be stricter, as does European grading scales when it come to naming a coin uncirculated.

However, they are much more lenient with cleanings and what is considered nice toning has a broader range than in US.

A work colleague with incipient interest in coin collecting sent me a link to this pcgs Webinar:

I've taken two snaps of the description for MS 63-64 and MS 65-66. This relates only to the surface condition of the coin.

Now, as Epop says, there is considerable inconsistency when it comes to grading, whether it is due to graders changing regularly, or attention to detail being sacrificed to expedite orders, I don't know. I've personally seen some of my coins under-graded as sometimes I've seen them over-graded.

In either case the result let me down and affected the way I feel towards TPGs. I admire the near clinical exactness they want to achieve in grading, but they've got to be more accurate. This inconsistency let's down the collector and themselves.