There are a couple of imperatives to keep in mind when discussing a coin like this. First, I am making the 28th post in this thread, yet it has over 640 reads. 600 people you and I will never know about have already read - and are learning - from this thread. Given our mission to educate new collectors, chances are for some of those readers this is the first time they're discovering how common 1909-S VDB fakes are.
When you post here, you speak to a large auditorium full of people, and they are there to learn from you because that's what we've invited them for.
Second, much of what you're seeing here as red flags - I'm guessing because nobody has presented any real evidence aside the fact that the coin is worn and pitted -
is a red flag for a counterfeit coin because this is a popularly counterfeited coin. If this were a 1941-D we wouldn't question it.
Where does that attitude stand in the scheme of academic rigor?
The wear and pitting stand a good chance of accounting for the weight. It's at least a plausible cause, and must be considered because we know of chemical processes which could cause this on a genuine coin. The doubling is appropriate for the variety, at least to the extent we can see in the images.
The important point is, nothing conclusive exists here. Either way.
This all is of the greatest importance because our unique
ebay connections mean if we decide this coin should go,
it will go. Your opinions can end a seller's
ebay career. Bobby's no slouch with coins but he will listen to our opinions and be convinced to act if we're firm enough even if he's unsure.
We have no right to be less than certain to an academic standard before we swing a sword this sharp. We owe it to the new collectors reading, to the sellers whose efforts we can affect, and to Coin Community as a whole because this Forum's reputation rests on your words.
While I'm being long-winded, this would be a good time to publicly recognize Drew's efforts in presenting these coins, and the good work of learning he's done in developing not only his recognition skills but his reporting skills. Drew's a YN who blasted off so hard into orbit about counterfeits that I had to slap him about the head a bit, a while back, to get him to slow down and look around.
He did that, applied the lessons I never had to teach him and has become a real asset in the fight against counterfeit sales on
ebay. He's putting effort in that most of us won't, and deserves recognition for it.
Nobody likes the fact that counterfeits have to be such prominent and frequent topics around here. We're contemplating ways to keep these coins in public, on the front burner, without clogging the subfora but they
need to be seen first and foremost because we cater to the people who need to learn about them.
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Posted 08/26/2015 4:48 pm
