New To Coins And Website - Confused About Fakes On Ebay

First off, welcome.

You're opening quire the can of worms here to start off.

Keeping this as short as possible, there are particular countries and web shopping sites notorious for selling "replicas" without disclosing them as such. Some ebay sellers are fronts for this activity. My best advise is to develop a relationship with a "bricks & mortar" coin shop in your area & to educate yourself on what you want to collect (the maxim you'll hear is, "Buy the book before the coin.")

Thanks - I bought the Red Book of coins and a world coin book. But I don't see much info on spotting fakes.
Well - I will try and buy from coin shops - some scrap buyers will sell their coins too. I tend to get obsessed when I do things - so far I bought Morgan's and Peace dollars.
I have always found and kept change - every time I travelled I through the change in a big water bottle with the rest of my finds. Looking forward to digging through them all.
Thanks for the pointer - please be patient when I ask obvious questions - Thanks !

I'd add the caution that sometimes sellers purporting to be located in the U.S. are having their goods shipped directly from overseas. There's also the problem of hijacked accounts.



The other thing you ought to obtain is a digital jewelry scale, preferably accurate to a hundredth of a gram. Besides exposing underweight forgeries, this will also allow you to make a determination of a coin's specific gravity, from which its composition can be inferred. These scales can be purchased off ebay, often for less than $10.

Welcome. I keep my baying under $60.00 as a rule and also have developed buying relationships with sellers. They let me know when they list a coin I may have interest in. If I had to do it over I would have slowed down and learned my quarry first. 99 % of the coins I buy are from auction with old reputable dealers. Pick one series and stick to it. Actual coin shops do want to sell coins and I have 2 dealers whom move coins fairly and honestly. I learned fairly fast which dealers will deal and which ones cause a squeal. I'm lucky with the number of shops in Salem and Portland Oregon. Don't try and learn everything by Thursday :) If I knew 2 years ago what I knew now every coin in my 1909-1971 cent folder would be 2 grades higher at 30% less than I paid. Hang on, your in for the ride of a lifetime. Check out Heritage, GreatCollections, and your local shops. The ones you want are available if you search hard enough. I got burnt on the bay buying a 1980 DDO Lincoln Cent, great learning experience. My score is 2 lemons and 3 good cheap cherrypicks at 15% book. I'm now very cautious and look for return policy's and past feedback comments.

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