Mexico War Of Independence Silliness

Does the ebay name "Centcles" ring a bell? Check the ahem, cough, snort, snort again, hack, ahhhhhhh feedback on the seller. Seems like he has purchased mega quantities of his , ugh, wares.

I was wondering if anyone had the same impression.




Then I looked at the bidding results and there is something sinister going on. I looked at the first ten coins. All numismatic forgeries. All worthless yet the total sale was about $3,400.

In the 10 auctions there were just 2 winners. # 305 and # 4088. Each of the two winners won 5 of the 10 auctions. Each was also second high bidder in 5 of 10 auctions.

When viewing all bids within $100 of the high bid only one new bidder appears # 1487 appears 1 time.

I can think of only two things this could mean:

1. Arranged bidding by two people who wanted to win all of these obvious fakes and then refuse to pay. Foolish in the long run because the seller looses nothing and the accounts of the non-paying bidders get sanctioned.

2. An arrangement to determine just how many foolish bidders will fall for these coins and at what price level. Also the fakes are building up a sales record that would look pretty good to a novice bidder checking past sales of similar items.

The sellers now know that a few of these coins will get bids over $50. They also know how far bidders can be pushed. The 1812 Provincial Oaxaca 8R silvered would sell at $100. The 1812 Sud from Huautila would sell for $155. The 1814 4R silver for $135. Those are the odd ball bidders. Very good information to have if you are a forger running a ring of pushers.

If the old coin watch committee was still running at ebay there would be three permanent suspensions issued for these auctions. The seller would be gone for selling fakes and both of the high bidders as well for collusive bidding.

As it is today all three will be in business next weekend.

By the way, the typical ring never exchanges real cash and all winners and the seller get glowing positive feedback. It simply costs the ebay posting fees.

Honestly - although this is wrong and everything is MODERN and being in WOI stuff now for over the last 10 years the average buyer of this material is very advanced. We can see this gang ringing it up. I would be surprised with any outsider coming IN at these prices - Portraits and Cobs - different story of course - every WEEK we see someone taken.

Back to WOI buyers - Even if we look at that Stacks Sale a couple of years back in November, 2012 (i.e. rumor was it was the Guttag Brothers stuff?) and that cryptic cataloging by Stacks and their unusual group lots of WOI low denomination type silver! - NOTHING WENT BY UNNOTICED. NOTHING. These guys are VERY well trained/educated at this LEVEL of Merchandise. My only problem is training this group to LIKE contemporary circulating counterfeits!

See here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Extremely-...100675.m4236

Its not easy keeping that ebay seal. Some people just don't know however ... and they are honest.

I'm sorry but I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. What are they doing? Are they creating their own prices by bidding up up up with a couple of bidders that are in on it? Then someone ONLY going by what these sold for in the past on ebay are going to bid higher than they should... For a fake nonetheless because the seller has great feedback?

Is that Barber dime also fake?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/USA-KEY-PI...047675.l2557

John, glancing back at that now as I write... as I am not one of said advanced buyers (and you're right about that - these ebay pieces wouldn't fool any of the dedicated types):

Are you saying (RE: Stack's Ponterio Nov. 2012) that everything sold well and nothing fell through the cracks cheap (which is what it LOOKS like with my limited knowledge in this area?)... or implying that there was some iffy material in there that the market sniffed out?

Regarding this group of forgeries - My comments were directed at the first 10 Mexican War of Independence coins. That number of frauds were (at least before March 2013) enough to get a suspension of a seller for 30 days if not permanent. All auctions would have been stopped - good along with bad and fees would be retained. We were not obligated to demonstrate that all the items were fraudulent to have this action taken. A group of 10 was more than adequate to remove 100 or more listings as a warning.

It is quite common to have even the worst sellers mix inexpensive genuine coins with trash. That gave them something to complain about when they were terminated. So some of these items "may" be genuine. I believe there are 25 obvious forgeries in the WOI group, I believe the proof patterns are better called "replicas" and the less expensive paper money (items) may be real. The 1832 Zacatecas 500 Peso bills are IMO fakes. The Iturbide is likely a cast copy. The counter stamped Pillar 8R is probably bad as well (cast host) - the stamp certainly is fake.

The Barber dime is ? The pictures are poor and the coin was shill bid by 305 above where it should have been. The coin looks like a G-4 to me. So even if genuine the buyer was ripped off by a factor of 2X.

paxbrit You are absolutely correct. Greed on the part of the buyers is a driving force that keeps the numismatic forgers in business. If something is too good to be true, it usually is. There are few bargains on ebay.

coloneljohn The example you posted is a fantastic example of a terrible copy being offered for a bargain basement price of only $2,500 which makes the coins of vazar.mx look like great deals. This particular forgery type was included in a group of nearly 50 WOI fakes I bought from Richard Long about 15 years ago that were at one time owned by Virgil Hancock (former ANA President and author of a column on counterfeit coins that I followed as a kid). This specific variety (an obvious poorly cast copy) was exhibited by Mr. Hancock at the 1970 ANA show in New Orleans. So it has been around for about 50 years.

Regarding feedback of this seller - all of his feedback comes as a buyer - at least as of today and he certainly raves about the purchases from centsles. Anyone know a good eye specialist for Mr. Vazar?

Odd all around VERY ODD.

But since we are and I am running out of wise cracks - I will just wish the group better hunting in the future.

spruett001 You are correct I hit Search Seller Feedback in error. He has 14 sales feedbacks and 82 as a buyer. There are several positives for items that are fakes. The buyers can't tell in hand?