Counterfeit Silver

[scyther]

I just started buying silver a couple weeks ago at my local coin shop. So far I have just a couple ASEs and 90% junk silver coins. Today I bought my first generic silver round. I'd like to buy more, but before I spend a lot of money on silver, I want to make sure what I'm buying isn't counterfeit. So I have some questions...

1. How big of a risk is there of counterfeiting? Is it something I need to be really concerned about? I heard that silver was much less commonly counterfeited than gold, but I also heard there were a lot of Chinese counterfeits of US silver dollars...

2. Are there any safe places to buy from? I'm thinking maybe the bigger online dealers with a good reputation wouldn't sell counterfeits but I know they buy from random people who want to sell off their silver and I don't know how well they would weed out fakes...

3. Any kinds of coins that are unlikely to be counterfeited? I'm thinking it might not be worth the effort for junk silver (especially dimes), but maybe it is. And I'm particularly concerned about random "merry Christmas" silver rounds... it's just so hard for me to trust that that's actually silver instead of some other random metal when I'm not familiar with what it "should" look like. I really wouldn't know if it were fake.

How do you people who buy a lot of silver (or gold, although I can't afford that) deal with this issue? I'd like to build my silver stack more but I'm really paranoid and don't want to risk wasting my money on worthless fake metal.

[justj2k78]

I don't have a "good" answer, but if you buy here, or on Bullion Stacker, you shouldn't have to worry too much about that.

[Mossy]

Hope you bought a jewler's loup, scale, and vernier caliper. And a good reference book.

I recommend you head over to Google and enter:

counterfeit silver coins

and you should have more than enough leads to keep you busy for a few weeks.

As for gold... Eventually you are going to consider buying some. Before you do, I strongly recommend you head over to:

http://www.fisch.co.za/home.htm

and consider buying a set of whatever is most likely. If you are lucky enough to have a family that is also into buying gold, you can buy a full set of these testers for $549 and share the cost. Considering that a British Sovereign (the most common gold coin in the world, and the most commonly counterfeited) is currently about $450, you don't need to avoid many conterfeits before you have saved the purchase price.

They offer a Silver Dollar tester for $75. Might consider it if you are going after cartwheels. I don't think there is a tester for the other coins.

[Engineer]

You can pick up a digital caliper for under $10 at Harbor Freight, and digital scales go for about that much on Amazon or Ebay. Scales are also handy when you're buying or selling to make sure you've got the correct number of coins in a roll.

For someone new to the game, junk silver dimes are a good way to go. There are a few fakes out there, but those are generally easy to avoid because its hard to fake years of wear, tarnish, and grime without actually carrying them around in your pocket for a couple years...and if you do get duped into accepting a fake you're only out a couple dollars.

[Diggin4copper]

Most likely those rounds you have are fake... send them to meand I will make sure they are disposed of properly...

[Tourney64]

You can try a magnet on them and if sticks you know you don't have a real silver coin. Doesnt prove it is silver though.

[Pennybug]

Learn how to identify the SOUND of silver. Take two coins, balance them on the end of your 1st finger on each hand and SLIGHTLY tap them together. I do this with halves, dollars, and eagles. I know the way they are SUPPOSED to sound. You can learn other sounds by doing this with ikes and clad halves. Use 40% halves as well. As for smaller coins, I use a baseline. As many counterfit experts have said in the past... I don't study counterfits and how to recognize them... I study the REAL THING and KNOW how to recognize it. Get a few examples of ALL the coins you plan to collect and study them. Me... this is ONE reason I DON'T collect medallions or rounds and ONLY US Currency. If it doesn't say "IN GOD WE TRUST" and have a denomination on it... I'm not interested. But... that's just me. Thing here is... if someone counterfits a silver round... they are up against trade mark infringement and some other laws most likely. If they counterfit US made currency and it's NOT marked as such, well then, you're up againt the US government and currency counterfiting laws now. So in essance, it's an "extra level of insurance" that I have when I collect US currency silver and not rounds (Eagles, Morgans, etc). DO LOOK UP the fact that China/other countries are able to LEGALLY make REPLICAs of OLDER US coins (so long as they are marked).

As for your question on how prevelant they are... I suspect that over the next 2 years we will start to see a continual rise of counterfit stuff. I suspect the best way to avoid this is to really deal ONLY with reputable sources UNTIL you have enough confidence to identify counterfit items. I was worried about this too when I started collecting.... not so much anymore. If your worried enough about it that you are researching it... you will likely learn enough to ever keep yourself from buying counterfit items.

I think there is already enough on this thread from what others have said (scales, magnets, etc) and from what I said here to cover all the bases. By the way... I learned this stuff on this website too! You're DEFINATELY asking the RIGHT people who will give you the RIGHT answer...

Most likely those rounds you have are fake... send them to meand I will make sure they are disposed of properly...

... well... at least SOME FORM of an answer!

[Tribal Warrior]

Always use a magnet and scale. Then the noise of them dropping sounds different too. For Silver Dollars be very cautious because the counterfeits are pretty close to the real deal if you don't look closely.

[Treetop]

Buy an example of a wide range of silver .999 rounds/coins, including private mints and generic stuff. Buy a pristine roll of each type of 90% coin. (well besides dollars perhaps, you can go singles there) and buy another roll of worn stuff.

This is the advice Id give in addition to the above stuff. Feel all these coins. Hold them. Play with them a bit. Flip them. Drop them. Etc... imo you arent likely to need to go beyond that if you dont want to. If something doesnt seem right I just dont get it. Even if the scales and the rest would have proven it genuine, I might not have all that when its time to sell. that is how I see it anyway...

[theo]

I wouldn't worry too much about silver fakes. They exist of course, but probably not in large numbers just yet. I don't believe that it is cost effective to create credible fake silver coins at these prices. For example, there are fake morgan silver dollars, but I believe most of those are rare dates. As others have suggested a digital scale and a magnet will catch most fakes. If it makes you feel better, talk to local dealers about how they detect fakes. Some might shine you on, but most are honest.

[mflugher]

If you are buying true "junk" silver there seems to be very very few fakes. however if you see CC mints, Trade dollars etc, be on the lookout, those are heavily counterfeited. Digi calipers, digi scale, and a reference book are what you need though, total cost $25 at harbor freight/google download, vs $550 for a set of fisch...

[TheJonasCollegeFund]

Great question. The higher silver goes the more likely the fakes will start popping up. That means the silver rounds, too. You need to educate yourself. That old saying about a fool and his money...is true. Get a good magnet, powerful but small enough that you can carry in your pocket. But, keep it away from your wallet. A good magnet will erase and ruin your credit/debit cards. Get a good jeweler's loupe. Get a cheap digital scale. And if you still smell something fishy....don't buy it.

Educate yourself.

[Mossy]

vs $550 for a set of fisch...

Fische is mostly for gold. The Fische silver dollar tester is $75 by it's self or $60 with one of the sets of gold testers. The PDF on buying gold is $25 by it's self and free with any purchase. The pdf is well worth the $25. But the only part of the Fische inventory related to what the OP in currently interested in is the silver dollar tester.

[97guns]

[SilverDragon72]

Some good information here...I really like the pictures. I probably wouldn't know the difference between fake and authentic. Most things I've bought are from dealers or the US Mint.

[dannan14]

i saw some silver Pandas on Craigslist a week or two ago that were at best replicas or at worst bad counterfeits. There was no Yuan denomination! i emailed the poster but got no response.

[scyther]

Thanks for your responses, everyone. Sorry for starting the thread and then ignoring it for a few days, I had some other stuff to do and then I forgot about it.

Learn how to identify the SOUND of silver. Take two coins, balance them on the end of your 1st finger on each hand and SLIGHTLY tap them together. I do this with halves, dollars, and eagles. I know the way they are SUPPOSED to sound. You can learn other sounds by doing this with ikes and clad halves. Use 40% halves as well. As for smaller coins, I use a baseline. As many counterfit experts have said in the past... I don't study counterfits and how to recognize them... I study the REAL THING and KNOW how to recognize it. Get a few examples of ALL the coins you plan to collect and study them. Me... this is ONE reason I DON'T collect medallions or rounds and ONLY US Currency. If it doesn't say "IN GOD WE TRUST" and have a denomination on it... I'm not interested. But... that's just me. Thing here is... if someone counterfits a silver round... they are up against trade mark infringement and some other laws most likely. If they counterfit US made currency and it's NOT marked as such, well then, you're up againt the US government and currency counterfiting laws now. So in essance, it's an "extra level of insurance" that I have when I collect US currency silver and not rounds (Eagles, Morgans, etc). DO LOOK UP the fact that China/other countries are able to LEGALLY make REPLICAs of OLDER US coins (so long as they are marked).

As for your question on how prevelant they are... I suspect that over the next 2 years we will start to see a continual rise of counterfit stuff. I suspect the best way to avoid this is to really deal ONLY with reputable sources UNTIL you have enough confidence to identify counterfit items. I was worried about this too when I started collecting.... not so much anymore. If your worried enough about it that you are researching it... you will likely learn enough to ever keep yourself from buying counterfit items.

I think there is already enough on this thread from what others have said (scales, magnets, etc) and from what I said here to cover all the bases. By the way... I learned this stuff on this website too! You're DEFINATELY asking the RIGHT people who will give you the RIGHT answer...

Good answer... I think I have a scale somewhere but I don't know exactly where. I'll have to find that. I struck some of the silver together to check the sounds... I can clearly hear the difference between silver half dollars and copper + nickel half dollars, but the coins of different sizes don't sound the same, and I don't have anything to compare the ASEs or the round with. I guess it will just take a while before I know the sound of silver well enough to reliably use that method.

In the meantime... what would you consider a reputable source? I've heard a lot of good things about provident metals... can I assume they won't sell me fake silver?

[Pennybug]

Sorry for the late response... I've been doing some classes this week for work. Anyhow... honestly, in my opinion... I suspect MOST if not ALL of the LARGER dealers in eagles like Provident, Apmex, Goldmart, etc. WON'T sell fakes. If they got caught doing that... word would get out FAST and they'd be TOAST overnight. Most, if not ALL coinshops I would say would fall in this category too (that and the fact that they'd recognize fakes and wouldn't have them in their inventory). I have seen fakes at coin shops, but were sold and marked as such.

Anyhow... reputable source... I haven't ordered from them yet... but I'm going to order from Goldmart in the future (if your going for the online option). Look into coinshops and get their prices. If they have good deals... well... nough said. Goldmart though seems to have some of the best rates as far as on line major dealers. I'd say E-bay is your hotbed for getting fakes and where you need to be the most cautious at (FYI... they seem to have some of the HIGHEST prices out there too in regards to Eagles). I have gotten deals on Craigslist... frequently actually. Whenever I'm in another town... I pull up C-list and shop around. Got a roll of morg/peace the other week in Ashville for $25 a piece. Anyhow... C-list is my go to spot mostly.

[Pennybug]

Also... 97Guns... that's a REAL NICE pic of some fakes there! I'm downloading that for reference. THANKS!

[scyther]

Anyhow... honestly, in my opinion... I suspect MOST if not ALL of the LARGER dealers in eagles like Provident, Apmex, Goldmart, etc. WON'T sell fakes. If they got caught doing that... word would get out FAST and they'd be TOAST overnight. Most, if not ALL coinshops I would say would fall in this category too (that and the fact that they'd recognize fakes and wouldn't have them in their inventory).

Good, that's what I was hoping... thanks.

[Treetop]

I was talking to a friend about fake coins just the other night. he said that his coin shop ran across fake morgan dollars, of key years, that were still 90% silver. Anyone else ever hear of that?

Seems a bit weird to me, because most who would want numismatic stuff presumably could spot most fakes.