The Dark Corner Of High End Fakes

Here is a post on how new kinds of fakes are being produce. The first image below is a extermly rare China Pattern 5 Li, a similar piece was sold on Stack's Bowers for $21000. (https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/l...cure-holder)

The genuine coin was sold in an auction in China in 2010 as raw and later as second image in an PCGS 63BN holder in 2014. The third image is a fake I found on a "fishy" seller homepage claiming to be genuine. It is obviously a fake or copy from the PCGS piece with the same contact marks on the rev rim (red circle).

This shocked me how good these fakes are getting, using genuine pieces to produce masses of them. Currently I am only seeing them popping up in the Chinese coin market, but likely soon these counterfeiters will use their "technique" on other world coins. If you happened to find this "pattern coin" one day on ebay, don't be fooled to think you have hit the jackpot.