TPGs And Chinese Counterfeit Slabs/Coins, Solution...

"RFID tags embedded in the slab"

--But those cannot be used to verify slabs for online transactions, which will be a growing sales venue. Additionally, that would require every dealer (or collector) to own and properly operate such a device, which would need to be connected to a central database. And how would you know a seller simply wouldn't hack such a device to provide a positive reading to sell fake slabs/coins? Again, a similar trail of problems persist.

No matter what you do, Someone will figure out a way to counterfit it.

Easy!

Just counter stamp the coin with the serial number.

quote:

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RFID tags embedded in the slab - of course you'd have to have a device to read the RFID, but that's the direction I would go

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And as I have said ever since people have been suggesting that solution, if you can read what the chip is broadcasting, you can copy it, and program another RFID chip to broadcast the same thing. And that is basically what the guy in the article posted by jbuck did. It doesn't even matter if they encrypt the information on the chip. You don't have to be able to decrypt the data, just copy whatever the real RFID broadcasts and have yours broadcast the same. The reader that is programed to decrypt will see yours as genuine as well.

To paraphrase E.E. "Doc" Smith: what technology can create, technology can duplicate.

Technology created the original coins. Slightly more sophisticated technology created the slabs. Both can now be duplicated relatively easily.

Some possible solutions:

1. The E.E. "Doc" Smith solution: benign aliens with hyperadvanced technology give the TPGs something the fakemasters couldn't possibly duplicate.

2. Only slightly less impractical: stop the counterfeiters by pressuring the Chinese government to make counterfeiting (in every sense of that word) illegal, and to then enforce the new anti-counterfeiting laws with the same zeal the authorities traditionally have for prosecuting anti-Communist activity.

3. Protectionism: ban or thoroughly screen all imports from China. That won't stop them selling the things to tourists, though, so you'd have to ban tourism to China, too, or thoroughly screen them when coming home.

Besides being harsh and punitive, options 2 and 3 have the drawbacks in only shutting down one source of fakes (in this case, China). As history shows, once one source of counterfeit coins is stopped, another starts up somewhere else in the world. And, of course, neither of these options do anything about the flood of fakes that have already been sold.

4. Technological cat-and-mouse: the TPGs continue what they're doing now, trying to constantly make their technology harder to duplicate, by including new things (like RFIDs, new plastics and materials, etc).

The problem with this solution is that, while it's possible for anti-counterfeiting technology to stay one step ahead of the counterfeiters, the ability to easily detect the counterfeits is normally one or two steps behind the counterfeiters. And as KurtS says, there's no point in including fancy anti-counterfeiting devices if they're so complicated and tedious that nobody bothers to check them.

5. Surrender: accept counterfeits as being a part of collecting life, and that any coin you purchase could be a counterfeit. Wise collectors would only purchase coins from trusted dealers that offered an eternal money-back guarantee that if a coin is fake, they'll refund. Newbie collectors will have to learn about fakes the hard way.

The TPGs role would be simply that of authentication and grading only for the person sending in the coins; tough-to-open slabs could be replaced with airtites or flips, since when it came time to sell, no-one would be trusting the coins or slabs to be true and genuine anyway. TPGs would actively discourage people from trusting one of their coins coming from anywhere but themselves, and no new guarantees would be made or old guarantees honoured.

I predict that, barring extraterrestrial intervention, the TPGs will continue to try to apply option 4, until eventually everyone gives up and option 5 becomes a reality. For collectors of ancients, option 5 already is, and always has been, the reality.

Easy solution:

Don't buy a coin off someone you DO NOT know.
Friends, clubs or dealers. Problem solved.

regards, muckeye.

Another argument against the RFID chips. These things work on short range radio transmitters. Guy with a reader can stand by the door at a show and as each dealer or collector walks out he knows exactly what coins you are carrying on you. Wander through the hotel and find out which rooms have coins in them.

No Eric, I was serious.
I did not say they had to 'confine their buying to a handful etc..' More so because of the sheer size of their market, they have greater opportunity to buy than we do.
I buy coins from dealers between Mackay and Newcastle. How many dealers in America would you find in a distance the same as that? A few more that the half dozen I find probably.

Clubs? I live 200 k west of Brisbane where there are three clubs. The next nearest club is Rockhampton?
I'm happy with my collecting opportunuties.