Annual Analysis Of Ebay Postings

Every year for the past 3 or so years, I have published the results of a brief study of the counterfeit coins posted on ebay and who purchased them.

Well last year, ebay decided to withhold bidders identities so I could not do my normal study. Instead, I decided to count the number of coins posted in several different categories and see how many counterfeits were included in each group.

I decided that I would look at every auction posted in the Mexico section of ebay. I did this daily and each day was 24 hours. I would then count the number of coins in each type by denomination and determine if they were original, counterfeit or uncertain. The types based on design were:

Cob
Pillar
Portrait
Cap and Ray

I included Iturbide coins under Portraits and did not bother with the Maximilain issues because they are of minor interest to me.

I included the following denominations:

1/2 Real
1 Real
2 Reales
4 Reales
8 Reales

Initially, I wanted to record an opinion of authenticity for each type and denomination, but that was simply too much work. In many cases, there were simply too many that fell into the "suspect" category. But I did track results for all the 8Rs for a period of time. I realized fairly quickly that the statistics - percentages of counterfeits in each type were STABLE over time. The raw numbers varied but over a 90 day period the percentages stabilized - except for Cobs.

The data on Cobs was the least accurate because I have the least familiarity with that type. So I discounted the data on forgeries in that category as inaccurate. Most of the forgeries I identified were NOT properly described and very few or none of them were Contemporary Circulating Counterfeits in any event. The 90 day average was 80% for anyone interested).

The Pillar 8Rs posted were about 75% counterfeit during my study interval with over 90% of those being modern Chinese copies. The Portrait 8R series had about 30% counterfeit split between Contemporary Circulating Counterfeits (15%), Bullion Forgeries (1870 to 1930) (10%) and Modern Counterfeits. (5%). This last group is likely understated because in most pictures the recent silver forgeries CAN NOT be readily identified.

So I decided to keep track of total coins by Design and denomination but I only recorded detailed statistics on Counterfeits for Cap and Ray 8R types. I feel very comfortable with that data.

I then subdivided the Cap and Ray 8Rs into Early (1823-1845) and Late (1845-1897) based on the date Riddell published his book in 1845 as the dividing line. This roughly mimics my area of interest and it also divides the majority of transfer copies from other methodologies.

I also added a listing for those 8Rs that were properly identified as counterfeits versus the ones that were not properly described. I counted the Chinese counterfeits dated 1882 and 1884 Zs in a totally separate group.

I then tracked these revised statistics for one year beginning July 1, 2009 and ending June 30, 2010. The 90 day study ended in June, 2009.

I thought some of the members might be interested in the results of my study.

There were 150,983 auctions posted in the Mexican section during that year. That averages 413.65 auctions per day. But since I did record the auctions by day of the week, I can say definitively that Sunday is the most popular day to POST auctions. I tracked all auctions by posting date NOT ending date. That method precludes missing any auctions. Sunday produced an average of 475.9 postings for the year. Friday had the lowest rate at 391 (which was counter-intuitive to me). The largest number of auctions posted in one 24 hour period was 1,208 and the smallest was 173.

The 8Rs posted break down as follows: 789 Cobs, 1679 Pillars, 5368 Portraits, 1327 Early C&R's (before 1845) and 7446 C&Rs after 1845.

Starting from this data, I estimate that there were 1258 counterfeit Pillar 8Rs and 1342 counterfeit Portrait 8Rs posted during the year. These estimates are based on my brief 90 day study indicated above.

For the Cap and Rays I have very definitive numbers for the entire year. I even did my best to remove coins that were re-posted because they did not sell the first time around. There were 14% of the early C&R 8Rs that were counterfeit which is a total of only 183 coins. The late C&R 8Rs had a much lowere rate of forgery with only 3% counterfeit 221 coins (excluding the two junk Chinese varieties.) There were 533 copies of the 1882 Zs and 1884 Zs posted on ebay during the year (a total of 7% of all late C&R 8Rs).

The percentage of Contemporary Circulating Counterfeit Portrait 8R is just about the same as the Early C&R types about 15% versus 14%, but the Portraits are three times more likely to be properly identified as counterfeits. Only 54 total early C&R 8s out of 183 were properly identified as forgeries. I presume that is because Portrait 8R forgeries have become popular and sell for high prices while the C&R forgeries are lagging behind with little recognition of their true rarity.

Modern and Bullion forgeries in the Portrait group represented another 15% (likely understated for reasons cited above).

There are very few modern or bullion forgeries among the C&Rs in general. I spotted only 3 coins of this type all year in the early C&R group.

Once you are past the rates, it seems that as a class the early C&R 8Rs appear in smaller numbers than any other class of 8Rs except the cobs. If you focus in on the forgeries within the early C&R 8Rs there were only 183 coins all year out of 150,983 auctions. That is about 1/10th of 1 percent - 1 coin in every 1000 auctions.

That is my precise area of interest.



I was also surprised by which denomination was the least common. The 1/2R cob appeared only 129 times all year and the 4R Pillar was second at 159 times. The two most common were the late C&R 8R 7446 (51 years of issuance) and Portrait 8R 5368 (50 years of issuance).

Here is the list - (8R forgeries are shown in parenthesis):

Cob 1/2R.................127
Pillar 4R................159
Cob 2R...................197
Pillar 4R................230
Cob 1R...................270
Cob 4R...................290
Pillar 1R................428
Pillar 1/2R..............436
Pillar 2R................452
C&R 4R...................700
Cob 8R...................789
C&R 1/2R.................881
C&R 1R.................1,059
Portrait 1R............1,132
C&R 8R early...........1,327 (183) My target area
C&R 2R.................1,508
Portrait 1/2R..........1,618
Pillar 8R..............1,679 (1,258)
Pillar 2R..............1,900
Portrait 8R............5,368 (1,342)
C&R 8R late............7,446 (221)

Just thought you might be interested in some of the figures.