Buffalo Nickel I'm Selling - Could It Be Counterfeit?

There is a big difference between altered & restored. Restored is bringing something back to some percentage of it's original state while altered is changing an item into something it never was.

Seems there is always someone that does not like what the other is doing. I try to understand it, but it gets hard.

I can not see anything wrong with taking a real coin, in this case one, coins that are not collectible and make them into something that others want.

This is a process that professional coin grading companies and museums do all the time. Also most collectors I know will do things like dip a finger print or negative toning off a coin, just to make it a little better.

Actually that's a pretty nice looking restored 13s.
Anybody who collect Buffalo's with any degree of seriousness knows about nic-a-date
and these higher quality restorations. A nice alternative for those who don't care
and don't have the bucks for the orginal surface coins.

Yep. Chemically altered or mechanically altered is still altered.

Why should he if the hypothetical "novice collector" doesn't care enough about the purchase to do five minutes worth of research? You seem to be making a mountain out of a mole hill here.

Another point I'd like to make is you could apply this line of thinking to just about everything on the market. Novice collectors get fooled all the time, they always will. If weerdsteev met your dictates and changed the title to his auction and "stamped" the coin where would it end? Do all slider coins need to be stamped "slider?"

Bingo! The person said it looked like a spark erosion counterfeit. and that is because a spark erosion counterfeit has the same slightly rouch etched appearance that a acid soaked coin does. But the typical spark erosion fake has full detail and usually sharp square edges like a proof coin does. Some might think that you could that a spark erosion fake and artifically wear it to make it look like a worn coin. But if you do you will have that rough surface in the protected areas while the high detail areas qould be smooth. The "restored" coin has the same slightly rough appearance over the whole coin.

Hi weerdsteev,

I took me while to ponder your "making a mountain out of a mole hill" comment.

This is a forum to discuss issues regarding the hobby. Forgeries, alterations, cleaning, whizzing, toning, counterfeiting and other such topics are relevant and should be addressed.

Just to clarify, collectors that get burned with forgeries, altered, cleaned, whizzed, toned and counterfeited coins are REAL people, not "hypothetical". If you read the forums you know this to be true. There are far too many examples for my liking.

You started the thread by proposing the following dilemma:

" Buffalo nickel I'm selling - Could it be Counterfeit?"

For the record, I DO NOT believe you are counterfeiting. Nor, are you creating forgeries.

What you are doing is what I was trying to ascertain.

This is my understanding:
You have been offering a service filling holes in Whitman Folders with cheap "altered" key date coins for the past several years. You achieve this by "chemically altering" no-date Buffaloes into a saleable commodity. You then package the altered coins that are not key date and sell them by the roll.

Where we differ is how this will effect the hobby before, and after, we are both humus.

So, if you deem this as "mountain building" then I'll prefer to keep shovelling.

What I'm shovelling, I guess, depends on your view.