What I Think Ebay Should Do To Help Our Hobby And Others.

JM, what about PCGS and other TPG companies? You would think this would be a disaster for them in the long run. It really is sad. A collector can buy what he thinks is a nice, certified coin, hold on to it for a few years and be shocked when he tries to sell it. Of course he could also unwillingly pass it off as genuine, thus continuing the cycle. I guess there is no easy answer.

JMerrick--

OK, I'm confused. I tried poking around a bit following your lead, but nothing makes sense.

Here's a link from a Chinese seller I googled: http://product.madeinchina.com/MORG...636710.shtml

I'll accept that this is fake, but why price a fake at double retail, almost guaranteeing no buyer interest? Pricing at 20% under wholesale would make sense.

Here's an obvious fake, ngc instead of pcgs,but with the 2199/1599 price structure you mention:
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-f...esalers.html

I looked up marketables as an ebay seller (fastest way, search for double sharp, whatever that's supposed to mean). It looks like some stuff could be genuine, but knowing what we know, we have to assume it's all fake.Corrected once I understood the OP's point. Marketables seems to be OK.

Which brings me to the next puzzle. How in the heck does a seller manage to have almost 46,000 positive FB, with only two negs in a year, even if only 10% of what he sells is bogus? He also has 37,776 repeat customers. Are there really that many ignorant collectors?

I think before you accuse a seller as selling fakes you need to back it up.

I have purchased from marketables previously with no problem.
Granted their style of photography is not the best.

I see nothing in their current offerings that looks fake to me.

http://shop.ebay.com/marketables/m....trksid=p3686

Please point out what looks fake.

biggfredd, I don't think the poster said that was the seller - ebay is rife with photo theft.

If it was indeed from that seller (or even if it wasn't), it would definitely be educational to point out what is screaming "fake" in that auction. Besides the exact wording being used all over the internet for different coins (aliexpress, collectsilverpandas, ioffer, ebay, platinumpandas...)

You're missing something, guys. The Chinese thief stole Marketables' photos. That's all.

Fredd,

The counterfeiter's charge what they can get away with. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to their prices, except I've noticed that many fakes listed on the aliexpress site seem to follow the $21.99 to $15.99 pricing structure, probably due to the rather large amount of competition on that site.

I've spent a lot of time in the last few days researching this issue, and the more I learn, the more frightening the picture becomes. The problem of fakes established a market niche for TPG companies. Collectors, and more importantly *INVESTORS* look to the TPG companies to authenticate their investments, and cover their backsides. Now, with counterfeit slabs becoming increasingly common, it's becoming obvious that the TPG companies can't even cover their own backsides. If they can't, what exactly are people paying them for?

If we can find the fakes available in China easily, and we've clearly demonstrated we can, so can the TPG companies. I can't find it within myself to blame ebay. ebay is only the vehicle that the dishonest have hijacked at the moment. I can't believe that everyone with a fake coin listing on ebay knows that the item they're selling is fake. In fact, if that fake is in a fake slab, I'm beginning to believe that they may very well not know any better.

Currently, I think the issue is in the TPGing companies' court. People pay handsomely for their 'opinions'. If you, as a collector, or investor can no longer trust a slab, what purpose do those companies serve?

You're giving your fellow man far too much credit for intelligence, biggfredd.

Like I read recently in another thread - it's a wonder some of these people manage to sell anything at all.