Realcent.org

Silver does turn green from PVC poisoning, it is very possible you had silver there... Just FYI I wouldn't be so quick to throw him under the bus...

mflugher wrote:Silver does turn green from PVC poisoning, it is very possible you had silver there... Just FYI I wouldn't be so quick to throw him under the bus...

Okay, that would better explain his willingness to buy them back. The plastic holders where of a full page variety so you could put the pages into a three ring binder. Maybe he is legit after all.

I am still miffed he sold me PVC plastic coin holders! What if I had placed numismatic valued coins in there and they were tarnished?

Anyway, all this illustrates I am an amateur with coins (even though I have been gathering coins since '62). There is a lot I need to study up on. It's threads like this at RealCent that keep me learning.

PVC does all sorts of weird things to metals. I haven't seen green on silver myself, but that's certainly not to say it can't happen. I made the mistake of putting copper bars and rounds into PVC flips way back in the beginning. It did a number on them in short order; anything remotely "proof like" got a white haze.

Yep, back in the 80's, I lost a set of proof Jeffs to the pvc green.

Wow, PVC sucks... do ziplock bags contain PVC? I really hope the answer is no...

scyther wrote:Wow, PVC sucks... do ziplock bags contain PVC? I really hope the answer is no...

Most zip bags are polyethylene, perfectly safe for precious metals. Even better than flips because they seal and limit oxygen circulation. I ship most of my products out in little polyethylene zip bags or heat sealed polyethylene bags, ready for long-term storage right out of the box

natsb88 wrote:

scyther wrote:Wow, PVC sucks... do ziplock bags contain PVC? I really hope the answer is no...

Most zip bags are polyethylene, perfectly safe for precious metals. Even better than flips because they seal and limit oxygen circulation. I ship most of my products out in little polyethylene zip bags or heat sealed polyethylene bags, ready for long-term storage right out of the box

Wonderful... you say precious metals; that includes copper and nickel too right? I have a lot of pennies and nickels in various bags...

Yep. Polyethylene doesn't cause problems with any of the common metals that I'm aware of, it's pretty stable. FDA/USDA approved for food packaging and whatnot.

Just want to say for myself, and also again on the thread, 'thanks' to natsb88 as well as the other knowledgable folks regarding fakes. This is the kind of thread that is invaluable to us less informed folks who are small time stacker/hoarders. No one can afford to lose out buying junk counterfeits, specially not a retired old fogey on a limited monthly income! Thanks again, everyone, for all your helpful comments.

scyther wrote:

natsb88 wrote:

scyther wrote:Wow, PVC sucks... do ziplock bags contain PVC? I really hope the answer is no...

Most zip bags are polyethylene, perfectly safe for precious metals. Even better than flips because they seal and limit oxygen circulation. I ship most of my products out in little polyethylene zip bags or heat sealed polyethylene bags, ready for long-term storage right out of the box

Wonderful... you say precious metals; that includes copper and nickel too right? I have a lot of pennies and nickels in various bags...

I have put all kinds of coins in zip lock sandwich bags. Never had a bit of trouble, including coppers.

Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay wrote:

mflugher wrote:Silver does turn green from PVC poisoning, it is very possible you had silver there... Just FYI I wouldn't be so quick to throw him under the bus...

Okay, that would better explain his willingness to buy them back. The plastic holders where of a full page variety so you could put the pages into a three ring binder. Maybe he is legit after all.

I am still miffed he sold me PVC plastic coin holders! What if I had placed numismatic valued coins in there and they were tarnished?

Anyway, all this illustrates I am an amateur with coins (even though I have been gathering coins since '62). There is a lot I need to study up on. It's threads like this at RealCent that keep me learning.

There is no excuse for anything made of PVC being sold in the last 10 years. Back in mid ninetys when I was into magic cards and baseball cards etc, I remember all the quality holders making a big deal about being pvc free...

Shame on any retailer selling pvc products for coin holders at this time.

natsb88 wrote:I intend to do side-by-side photos, dimensional comparisons, weights, show how to test with acid, etc. on my website. I'm not sure how me buying a very small amount to document and spread the word about could be considered "part of the problem" as you are implying . My little $30 order is not going to make or break China by any means, there is tons of this stuff (probably literally) out there. The only way to combat fakes is to know what to look for. The only way to know what to look for is to study it. I have fake Silvertowne bars, Pan American bars, Stagecoach bars, Sunshine bars, Prospector rounds, and ASEs for the same purpose. A comprehensive analysis will be posted on my website in the coming weeks.

I am very interested to read your analysis. I have tried, as I am sure others have, to figure out how to somehow automate a way to separate legit 90% from fake 90%. Fake 90% is in the marketplace. Got a good scale, built magnetic slides, tried the coinalyzer... but nothing seems to be working well enough to automate a method to check 90% silver coins in bulk as the fakes it seems, are not of all one type/composition, although I think most seem to be stuck on some type of bronze/copper type blank and the better ones ring pretty true as well... Except for the really poor Morgan/Peace fakes which are magnetic. Honest, I want to read your findings.

Hi all, brand new member!

I stumbled onto this forum via this thread. I've been buying/selling pm's for a long time and am also concerned about fake junk silver hitting the streets. I always thought it would happen but not this soon given silver's still low price ($28-$30). I've seen first hand a lot of fakes, mostly morgans, rounds/bars and a few numismatic coins but never small denomination junk silver.

I've discovered an easy way to see if an item contains silver using silver's unique electromagnetic properties. I use what's called a silver swing (watch the video) for testing larger coins/bars. You can also use a slide (watch the video) which is easier when testing dimes and quarters or a lot of larger coins.

Silver swing


Silver slide


Field testing Morgan/peace dollars with a tiny rare earth magnet


Safe buying boys and girls!

Welcome, thanks for that post. Great magnet tricks! Someone should build and sell the slides. They would sell well.

Welcome Steel!

Awesome vids!

Steel, thank you for your post. Very informative. Where would one find these tiny strong magnets?

AGCoinHunter wrote:Steel, thank you for your post. Very informative. Where would one find these tiny strong magnets?

I got mine on ebay. Can prob get them on amazon too.

AGCoinHunter wrote:Steel, thank you for your post. Very informative. Where would one find these tiny strong magnets?

These work great for the swing test.
http://coppercave.com/copper/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=766

I friend shared this link with me yesterday about Fake 90% silver coins.
I find it interesting that folks are not assuming there have been fakes around for a long time. I've been seeing fake dimes, quarters and halves since I got into the coin business full time in 1980. You didn't see many at a time maybe one or a hand full in a $1000 bag those then all had a similar look to them as other fakes that came out of South East Asia in the 1970's. Fakes have been around almost since coins first began 2700 years ago and are still around today. I have fake Mexican coins made locally in Mexico from only 10 years ago. Sacajawea dollars have been counterfeited in South America since the early 2000's. The only real protection you can have against fakes is learning how to tell the difference yourselves. And expect to make a few mistakes along the way, education is rarely free, the price you pay is the mistakes you make and learn from.

Dale Bryant wrote:I friend shared this link with me yesterday about Fake 90% silver coins.
I find it interesting that folks are not assuming there have been fakes around for a long time. I've been seeing fake dimes, quarters and halves since I got into the coin business full time in 1980. You didn't see many at a time maybe one or a hand full in a $1000 bag those then all had a similar look to them as other fakes that came out of South East Asia in the 1970's. Fakes have been around almost since coins first began 2700 years ago and are still around today. I have fake Mexican coins made locally in Mexico from only 10 years ago. Sacajawea dollars have been counterfeited in South America since the early 2000's. The only real protection you can have against fakes is learning how to tell the difference yourselves. And expect to make a few mistakes along the way, education is rarely free, the price you pay is the mistakes you make and learn from.

Good point, all true. But I think we're sounding a greater alarm now because a) the payoff is now far greater, so there is a far greater motivation to create fakes now than previously, and b) given that the motivation is higher, the modern fakes will (eventually, if not now) tend to be better than they previously were. So the need for diligence is greater.

While I may have been duped and just not known it, out of a large number of coins of many types I have yet to run into an obvious fake. However, most of what has crossed my table - which wasn't from original mint sources - was pre-screened by experts from whom I obtained them, so I have probably been shielded from a lot of this. Which suits me perfectly well.

I've seen my fair share of US morgans that have been Chinese tested. They bear the stamp mark that is smashed deep into the coin.

No doubt there must have been at one time many US fakes in China. IMO, there is a good possibility that Chinese fake morgans are simply US fake morgans coming home to roost. Who created the fakes? Personally, I would think it would be someone from the US if the fake was made more than twenty years ago.

Canada did make several different formulations of the nickel afterall - all "technically legal" (99.9% pure, 88% copper, Chrome plated iron, 25% nickel, 2% nickel plated iron) at different points in time.

Additional example: Canada produced 650,000 $100 denomination gold coins in 1976. Some are 14K, others are 22K. They are not marked either way and pretty much the only way to tell - is by XRF scanner or destructive test.

So goes the theory, that when times are good - noone cares too much about double checking the coinage. As mistrust grows, it is a sign of a much larger problem.

ZenOps wrote:Additional example: Canada produced 650,000 $100 denomination gold coins in 1976. Some are 14K, others are 22K. They are not marked either way and pretty much the only way to tell - is by XRF scanner or destructive test.

Not sure what this statement has to do with fake 90%, but straight to the facts. The 14k and 22k are very easy to differentiate, no need for XRF or Destructive testing....
14k is 27mm, 13.33g, beaded at rim
22k is 25mm, 16.97g, no beading

Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay wrote:I have put all kinds of coins in zip lock sandwich bags. Never had a bit of trouble, including coppers.

Of course... it goes without saying...

the sandwiches were a little crunchy

but... I didn't know they could ticket you for that?

They are all out to get us! Even faking dimes?

Yes, plenty of dateless mercury dimes out there, slightly thicker rim usually, but very passable otherwise. Is the average person going to know that the rim is an indicator? Nope. My local coinshop guy even misses the occasional silver French franc (maybe he does just for fun) in the copper nickel bin.

I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of fakes were originally produced in the US, it just makes sense as China really didn't have the expertise until about 20 years ago. The US landed on the moon, China is still working on it.

So Chinese fake is kind of a dual edged sword. In China it means a fake US coin produced in the US, passed off in China as a the real thing. Which is usually the exact opposite of what a person in the US thinks what "Fake Chinese coin" means. It probably just a Fake US coin produced in the US, passed off in China during 1948 to 2000 or so, being brought back to the US in 2000 to 2013.

I'm also pretty sure that 99% of US fakes in China were destroyed by Chinese in and around the 1960's era, and the few that remained are the ones that are showing up in the US again (I can only imagine how many millions of coins were fake before the great melt)

Heaven only knows how many illegitimate US 30 and 100 year million and billion dollar bonds were passed off as legitimate by unscroupolous US banks. I mean really, who is going to know after 100 years what a bond is supposed to look like for certain? And how are you going to chase down the guy who sold you a 100 year bond, 100 years ago?

Now that China has some expertise and is producing more copies, some would say that China learned all its lessons from the US.