Fake Greek And Roman Silver Coins On Ebay

This looks like an electrotype to me.

Electrotypes used to have a following, for example, amongst ministers of religion who wanted to show examples of coins from the Bible but couldn't afford the real thing.

That is a clear cut cast fake; you'll learn to spot casting artifacts pretty quickly as you get used to looking for them.

An account has been selling really exceptional casts of rare coins for high prices for a while now but ebay wont do anything about it (I reported the person through the customer service chat,but it seems they didn't believe me). I honestly don't think I'd be able to pick them out as fakes when they aren't all being sold by the same person at the same time. It does make me wonder how many coins out there are museum quality reproductions.

Brilliant, thanks for the help

JSKIRWIN:

When you say, "Stick with Vcoins and auction houses", I would respectfully ask you consider the following: I am a top rated seller with 100 grand in sales a year, all auctions start at $1 even if I pay hundreds for the coin. I have to ship in 24 hours or less and if a customer even does not like the coin in 30 days or less for just no particular reason ebay sides with the buyer and freezes the value they paid from may account until I refund the money or they do it themselves. As a buyer from a reputable dealer with an account that is established a buyer is quite protected and supported. Vcoins is a model that works for listing coins at fixed prices that ensure profit and allow a person to wait for many months etc. But I only enjoy the gamble of listing at $1 start and as long as I only lose 1 in three times I would not trade this platform for the world. The player has to beat the house sometimes for it to be a fair game as they say in the casinos. And with the whole world to sell to ebay is the only place my model works.

Travelcoin:

If you do that or not it won't matter. People are biased against ebay and that will never change. If it was not the case there would be lists of vcoin dealers who gave people a hard time. So the list of trusted ebay sellers implies most can't be trusted. There is nothing the company can do or say to make a difference. I just opened up a Heritage auction lot, so the coins in the photo, we will know the real going price because of ebay and an open auction. That helps everyone and keeps people from hyping up coins they list many times over what they paid.

Jskiwin;

I do understand really. But when you say, "As a general rule I believe new collectors should avoid ebay," that is a blatant bias sadly based in very little. You don't mention the hoops top rated sellers go through including having to stand in line at the post office every day just to make the 24 hours or less shipping and acknowledgement by the government post office. You don't mention the fact we have to return money for any reason and buyers are protected in the 30 day window if they dislike coins for any reason. I am quite sure I follow stricter rules than any vcoins dealer but that is besides the point. You just tell new buyers to avoid ebay and let some vcoins dealer price a coin 3 times what they paid for it? I'll never understand the bias but accept it is part of American society I suppose. All I know is I just put up a Nero, Caligula, and some republic denarius coins tonight and they start at $1 with rust on the flip staple from the old Heritage collector. And I know for sure the correct market value of these coins will be achieved and not a dollar more. Plus I bring in people who first ask why ancient coins are so cheap and end up in a year buying vcoins as real collectors. So I find the rare gene that likes ancients from the public simply searching for a book on Rome and end up exploring ancients. The value we at ebay bring to this collectors system is important.

Travelcoin;

In response to: "Louisville, you have to admit, the sheer amount of fakes that are being sold on ebay have unfortunately given them a bad name. No doubt about that."

Like others I filled out the USA homeland forms to be an importer of record with shipping companies. Paypal reports my earnings and I am registered as a company, I pay a lot of federal, state, and city taxes that goes to keeping the country running and school systems. Not to mention the huge amount of money I generate for the postal system that surely needs us now that regular Americans do online banking and don't mail with stamps.

I say this because the platform I choose to house my business continually paints my business on these boards in a negative light. Only by speaking up can anyone even start to admit there are decent companies that use the ebay platform. So you must admit if people constantly trashed vcoins for various reasons people would be upset. If people listed vcoins dealers on websites that overcharge for coins they clearly paid very little for and ignored ebay dealers who did that people would be upset. So I would hope everyone would understand that constantly trashing my platform, which as I stated in previous posts does so much good for the ancient coin business in finding new people who never would have dreamed such a hobby exists is just completely unfortunate. Just because it is not a racial bias it does not mean it isn't wrong to stereotype a whole class of vendors. Just think about if you said someone had to admit most people from a certain race or class are a certain way? Even if that had a legitimate basis in your experience you think you would be accepted making such a statement in this day and age? (Yes we are all overly sensitive to any profiling I know and this year has been extreme.) The bottom line as as good intentioned folks are about telling people to stay away from ebay and shop with others you only hurt valid business owners bottom line and depress sales. You would not tolerate that if people blacklisted other platforms you support.