A word of caution to the wise

[trails]

I just finished doing the Central Florida Coin Club show over the weekend and as expected, it was a nice show. The two main notables at this show were J. T. Stanton and Randy Campbell from ICG which made attending the show just a little more special.

Now for the bad news. Two coins that I looked at were forgeries; a 1877 Indian head penny and a 1909-S Lincoln cent. These forgeries seems to be an ever increasing problem and they are not going to go away with the wavy of a magic wand.

Both coins were bought from internet auctions and both coins were not encapsulated. Randy Campbell summed it up with this statement; " You are placing yourself in jeporady of losing money if you bid on key, variety, errors or high end coins if they are not encapsulated by a top tier grading company". I total agree with his logic.

I purchased both a 1909-S VDB Lincoln cent and a 1921-P Walker; my first stop after I made the purchase was Randy's ICG table to verify that they were real, even though I knew both the sellers very well.

So, a word of caution. Be very careful what you buy and where you buy it from. I would hate to see a post that you feel into the forgery trap; all the people who haunt this site are more deserving of better than that.

BJ Neff

[RWBILLER]

good solid words - i have seen a 1914-d at my latest show in beautiful au condition. But it was marked by the dealer for people to show that it was a Chinese fake. I know the Far east is producing silver fakes - but this was the first copper coin i saw.
Roger

[dvn]

Excellent words of wisdom. Thanks for sharing BJ.

Billy (dvn)

[1sgret]

Excellent post BJ.

I do not buy errors/varieties/key coins from anyone who I have not dealt with before or unless they are encapsulated already.

China Fakes are everywhere, and some made here in the good ole USA.

[jcuve]

Fantastic advice BJ.

This is all unfortunate. The longer the fakes stay around, the deeper there are going to get into various collections without anyone realizing it. These coins will haunt collectors for decades.

Of course I don't have much to worry about as I don't have $$ for for anything right now, that includes forgeries or the real thing :(

[fugnchill]

Thank you BJ!

Where as I'm jumping back into the market and the copper fakes are showing up more often, is there a common diagnostic with these two coins that I should look for? You know how we love to find the diamond in the ruff.

Lestrrr

[1jackel1]

I was at my local coin dealer and was going to buy the 09s-vdb and when i looked at the s on the coin it was not correct, so i asked the dealer, who i know very well and told him to take the coin out of the holder and he did and i explained to him that he was ripped off on this coin and he asked me why and i explained that the s on the that coin was a fake. So what i did was put my finger on the s and pushed it a little and it came off!!! And now he knows and was not very happy about it. So in terms always buy one of those from a very reliable source or have the dealer let you examine the coin or just buy it certified.

George