My Favorite Fake Coins

Sell them clearly marked as reproduction or copies and you should be ok. Personally, I feel skeetish about buying more expensive coins from a ebay vendor that also sells a lot of copies.

No it would not be right to call them fantasy coins because they technically are not that at all. Fantasy coins are those that were never made for circulation. These are counterfeits of coins that really were circulated at one point.

Numismat You said "And don't take it personally, but when I see counterfeits on ebay I always report them REGARDLESS of how they are described. If they are not stamped "copy" I will surely end up reporting them."

There are perfectly legal counterfeit coins that do not need to be stamped COPY in accordance with the Hobby Protection Act. There is no need to report those types and I do take it personally when I lose a valuable counterfeit coin because the auction is terminated.

Would you insist that all of the 15 restrike 1804 Bust Dollars known to exist be stamped COPY before they could be sold on ebay? They were never legally monetized and are not a legitimate issue of the US mint. But they are worth Millions of dollars each.

Would you report a Machin Mills coin that did not have the word copy stamped on it? These are even accepted for third party grading.

Those and other well known and valuable Colonial and early Republican counterfeit coins are in the same category as Sheffield Plate copies of Silver coins made in England for use in Canada and the US colonies. But all of these types appear on ebay with NO PROBLEMS.

A clear distinction needs to be drawn between legal and illegal counterfeit coins. Any copy of a former-monetary issue that is no longer legal tender is LEGAL provided it was NOT made OR IMPORTED into the US after the approval of the Hobby Protection Act. Therefore, a counterfeit made say in 1950 of a coin of any date that is no longer legal tender is LEGAL provided it was in the US before 1974. It does not require the word COPY to be stamped on it.

Prior to 1857, many foreign silver coins were legal tender in the US. These coins were counterfeited in the US and elsewhere to an alarming extent. Prior to 1857 those counterfeits were every bit as illegal as a forgery of a Bust Half Dollar. However, after 1857, the foreign silver coins were demonetized. Therfore, a counterfeit Mexican 1842 8R is perfectly legal to own or sell in the US and does not need to be stamped COPY.

This same legality DOES NOT extend to the counterfeit Bust half dollars made before 1857. Those are still technically illegal.

The number of Counterfeit Bust Half Dollars on ebay is considerable. They are technically illegal because the denomination was never demonetized. Yet ebay allows the auctions of Counterfeit Bust Halves to proceed and no one from the Secret Service was chasing Keith Davignon before or after he published his landmark text on Bust Half Forgeries. I dare say that the Bust Half Nuts would be up in arms if there was a demand to stamp their contemporary counterfeit coins COPY. This is simply reasonable because the numismatic community recognizes that they are of historic and monetary value.

But counterfeit Bolivian, Mexican, Peruvian or Spanish coins that circulated alongside the Bust Halves before 1857 are not treated in the same fashion. All of these coins lost their monetary status in 1857. That makes them 100% legal to own, sell or trade as long as they are properly described. They are fully as collectable and historic as the Bust Halves.

But ebay will terminate auctions involving those coins when they are reported.

I have tried numerous times to point out the legal distinctions, but ebay is concerned only with the bottom line and drawing a distinction is difficult for them to do. It would cost them a buck to make the distinction. They don't care about the serious collectors of early counterfeits like myself because we focus on less well known but even more LEGAL series.

The only counterfeit coins I report to ebay are the frauds and illegal counterfeits. The ones where novices stand to lose money. But I am very rarely successful. ebay's policies seem to protect the frauds and penalize the honest guys like myself.

Many but not all contemporary counterfeits are at least as valuable as the originals and there are literally thousands of collectors of counterfeits in the world, but we are a largely silent minority.

I do not intend to offend anyone by my comments, but there is a simple principle at work here. Not all counterfeits are worthless frauds and not all sales of counterfeits should be reported for lacking the word COPY.

Whatever you do, you should describe your items correctly and honestly. For example, here's a coin that the seller described as 'awesome BU,' completely leaving out the fact that it has been abrasively and harshly cleaned:



I don't know of anyone on this forum who would honestly call a coin so whizzed to the point of damage 'BU' with a straight face, do you?

halfabustisbetter I hope you don't own that one.

Actually if you look past the obvious harsh cleaning - I think see a counterfeit. There is a suspicious softness to the details that looks like a Chinese pressure cast copy. I am not familiar with this era in Brazil, but at that time period most mints had adopted fairly good die manufacturing methodologies. The Chinese fakes are noted for dark and uneven chemical toning so perhaps a middleman got this one and cleaned it to try to make it "look better".

Beside the soft details, I also don't care for the partial collar seam either. The presence of a partial or uneven collar seam often points to a forgery. The step which produces the mold involves casting an original coin with a "plastic". There is a very small amount of shrinkage and the molds are often enlarged to the correct diameter. This results in a "margin" that looks similar to a collar seam. I think that is what I am seeing here.

I would love to see this one in person or get some more information - like weight and edge appearance.

G'day, I'm trying to put together a collection of coins, as might be found circulating in Britain in 1820: all I'm missing is a threepence.
In my journey, I have seen a lot of contemporary forgeries. I decided to add these to the collection: most of them are brass, many still with traces of a surface treatment that gave them a silver-like appearance. I don't think any of mine are cast: they all appear to be good quality, but I am only guessing at the process of their manufacture.
Every time I hold the forgeries: I am overtaken by the knowledge that upto 1832, possession of fakes carried the death penalty - a penalty which was sometimes carried into full effect.
Forgeries sometimes have a place in a collection, and it would be a loss if honest people couldn't trade in this very interesting species of historical artifact.
Peter in Oz

Numismat You really need to start watching the lower end items. The Chinese have embarked on a mass copying effort involving some of the most common silver coins you can imagine. Their targets are actually non-collectors - people getting into the silver market without knowing anything about silver.

Here are a couple examples from Roger Lee of Hong Kong,:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Replica-Sweden-...84_W0QQitemZ150210458337

http://cgi.ebay.com/Replica-Spanish...86_W0QQitemZ160202986398

http://cgi.ebay.com/Replica-Mexico-...50_W0QQitemZ160203064726

You should note that to comply with the law, Roger has to ADD the word COPY himself. He buys these wholesale without the word COPY on them.

The Sweedish 2 Kronor is a bullion coin with little numismatic premium even in EF. The Spanish 5 Peseta is similar but older - it is only valuable in EF and above, but the example shown looks like a harshly cleaned F-VF. The last one is an earlier version that has been on the market over 6 years - less believable but really just a bullion coin in that grade. These are far from high end but the quality improvement made in the last 6 years is evident when you compare the 2K to the 25 Peso.

So just keep your eyes open.