Fake 90% Silver

[natsb88]

I haven't seen a fake slabbed ASE specifically, but there are definitely fake slabs. Both PCGS and NGC. From dimes up to double eagles. And they typically use a real serial number so if you look it up it will match the coin and grade.

[Chief]

Fake 1964 halves really worry me. Almost all 1964 Ken's are nice, full-weight 90% silver. A coin with little-to-no numismatic appeal, only stacking appeal, being counterfeited? No bueno, amigo.
They are the cornerstone of my stacking overall, along with circulated dimes. As someone earlier in this thread said, maybe 40% halves are the way to go? Not worth the time to counterfeit.

[scyther]

As someone earlier in this thread said, maybe 40% halves are the way to go? Not worth the time to counterfeit.

I don't think that's quite true. It's still like $4 for a small amount of base metal. I'm sure it could be profitable, and there are probably some fakes. But it seems like one of the least likely things to be faked. Then again, maybe the counterfeiters are thinking that too, so you never know. Still, I imagine it's one of the safer options... if I can get a good price, I may buy 40% next time.

I really don't get why this is so much of an issue from the larger suppliers. So apparently a ryedale isn't sufficient, okay. But the general idea- testing the metal's electronic signature or whatever- is apparently feasible. And apparently good technology exists, it's just expensive. Even if it really can't get any cheaper than 12k (and it seems like it should be able to) I would think that would be a worthwhile investment for a very large dealer.

Also, I don't get why buying directly from the mint involves a premium. Doesn't cutting out the middle man generally lower the cost?

[SilverEye]

Can we detect these fakes with a scratch stone and silver acid solution?

[beauanderos]

from the various sources I've been reading, and from Nate's quick observations, I myself will rely on eyeballing items for thickness variations after weighing them. Get a small stack of coins and riffle them, letting them ring against one another as they return to stacked form. Listen for duds. Find one? Weigh it. Out of variance? Examine it for color/luster/greasiness. Got to overcome my bad habit of just trusting sellers, and inventory the stuff as it comes in. I have items I bought ten years ago and never ever unwrapped.

[neilgin1]

Where did you get this stuff?

Directly from China.

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.

You're a good man, that's a most worthy endeavour, and i thank you for "leading the column". just that first cursory look at the fugazi's, does it seem to you, that they ping on the dates, where the mints amped production? i ask because i saw a 64 wash, and a 21 Morgan, both with high mintage numbers.....or at the other end of the spectrum, might they go for certain popular "key" dates.....like the 1955 90's, or the 96 ASE's? (sadly, this is the time, in situations like this, i wish i had hard intel to know WHERE this activity was being conducted, and a bakers dozen of SLAM missiles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standoff_L ... ck_Missile ..which i trust would put these curs out of business)

most gratefully, neil

[beauanderos]

Just tell that little North Korean warmonger Lil Kim that the Chinese are counterfeiting their currency.

[neilgin1]

This whole episode raises another ugly question. Is there any sanctity in purchasing from online dealers? Even those with the best reputations? When they purchase large bulk lots from the public... do they have professional grade comparitors to scrutinize the coins, or are they merely running them thru coin counters like an LCS would??? Are we going to be forced to buy individual coins now, that one can instantly examine... preventing future sales of BIG lots that no one has sufficient time to evaluate individually? And yeah, not forcing China to shut down (as if that were possible) is merely part of a larger problem. You'll know how bad it is when you learn that JPMorgan has capitalized them (not beyond the scope of their duplicity, in my book). Of course... they do the same thing on a much grander scale... suckering people to buy worthless, non-metals back SLV and GLD ETF's

BINGO!!! excellent points....re: our last private conversation?.....do you now see why i 'glass' EVERY single coin in every single roll i buy?...or why i never went for face value bags, and stayed exclusively with a handful of sellers on Ebay.

i can say with 98% confidence i dont have one fugazi in the lot, but rest assured, the next time i do a hard count inventory, which i had planned soon, i'm defintely going to "fill" in that last 1.99% of implicit uncertainty.

Reading this VALUABLE thread, personally i'm brimming with a cold blue anger, because this is all way deeper than JUST PM coinage counterfeiting , the amount of intellectual property theft the Peoples Republic of China has engaged in, runs into the billions, and it has most definitely affected me personally.

The Chinese culture on the whole, the long historical view, i have nothing but admiration for, on an intellectual basis. But this 'pie-in-the sky' intellectual admiration collides with the cold realities of business, and i say "F### them". We have allowed the PRC, which is really the PLA, INC (Peoples Liberation Army) to grab most of our consumer manufacturing base from us. We all remember a day, when that toaster was "Made in the U.S."...and owning a Zenith TV was a big deal...right? i remember a day when as a child, driving with my family down the Eisenhower Expressway (the I-290) in Chicago, and for 15-20 miles into the city, you could see dozens upon dozens of consumer manufacturing plants., it was a sight to behold, even as a kid. i thought to myself, "we are one powerful nation", because one knew the GOOD jobs within those plants, which meant a vibrant middle class, people who owned houses, worked 5 days a week, supported families. Now you drive the Ike, the 290...all those plants are gone.....a way of life, and a vast middle class IS GONE.

i'm not trying to veer from the OP, or topic. To me, its all part and parcel, and relates TO the topic; why do we all stack? Because we're the sons and grandsons of that generation, and we feel it neccesary to do a 'work-around" in a day and age, when we DONT know how long the FRN is going to hold up, retain value. How long the banking "system" is going to hold up, or God forbid, we go into some globalist nightmare.....and these Chinese?...one of the few industries we still maintain a trade surplus with the rest of the world, is entertainment content. (agriculture being the other) and i can tell you the chinese have no respect for intellectual property rights, and have stole untold billions of dollars, because in the end, they REALLY CANNOT come up with an original concept. They got to steal, reverse engineer, find the absolute minimum bottom line to manufacture, they cant even think smart enough to install stack scrubbers to filter out pollutants from burning coal, so that in many districts in China, the air is SO bad, there's no such thing as a "clear day"....and people die, from the respitory effects.

Now i understand, our foreign policy, which is "contain China", which is why we're in Afghanistan, and why we maintain discrete ties to all the "Stans, why we're in Iraq, why Libya "fell", why the French suddenly got rough and tough in Mali and Chad, why the Syrian "opposition" is intent on Assad's head, why Iran is on the plate...its all to contain China, and China, as a whole is not a "walk over". If it wasnt for China's dribble drabble support, North Korea would have imploded in the 90's...oh yeh.

Please excuse the diatribe, but good golly, we got enough to worry about, with a President, who MIGHT have a "kill list", and all that unconstitutional wickedness, and now we got to deal with Chinese PM counterfeiter's?!?

so, back to the topic, we CAN start barking at Ebay. As individuals?...not so much, but a concerted effort, yes. What policy change?...for starters, no more coin sellers from China. Letters. to Ebay, to the ANA, any grading services...start making connections, because it DOES effect their business as well. You got a congressmen, he's got staff, start with them. I know they're nigh useless as teets on a boar hog, but once you start the ball rolling...........but then again,maybe we just lay low. i'm not certain the course, but Nate sure is doing something good here...valuable.

ok, i'll go take my medicine now,. (lol) yours, neil

ps...here's the story of the ONLY American general that knew how to handle the Chinese, Matt Ridgway, one of my heroes, he was a great man: http://news.investors.com/management-leaders-in-success/120412-635614-matthew-ridgway-turned-the-tide-in-the-korean-war.htm?p=full

[paymehigher]

@Nate

Have you run the fakes through a Ryedale or another coin sorter with the sample coin that is legitimate?

[neilgin1]

1. Semi foolproof tester is XRF analyzer gun only $16k each, I figure if I get 1000 of you guys to buy one I can maybe afford one at $12k

2. Buying only from mint/over paranoia...
a. In the whole thread we have had 1 confirmed case of a fake being mixed into a lot. 1 measly half in what I presume to be tens of thousands of $ face 90% bought by this community.
b. The price of not hedging against inflation is far in excess of the cost of a few bad buys.
c. The cost of a few bad buys is far less than the extra premium of buying only from "orginal" mint sources
d. When its time to sell there is no way to prove you went to that extra expense to only purchase "original" mint sources and that extra premium goes out the window.
e. By publicizing what is currently a non problem we may create more of a problem in the future... How many people here have you seen say I will not buy a bullion bar over 10 oz of silver or 1 oz of gold because of the tungsten stories, again we are talking about a miniscule portion of the gold traded and about a dozen counterfeits ruined that market. How many criminals will see this being publicized and realize this is a good idea of their next scam? Are we potentially creating more of a problem than we are averting?


Just some food for thought.

good 'food'...you're a good cook. +1000

[neilgin1]

Ray, pls explain what you mean by "frontload" your stash.

personally, i'm taking advantage of the high premiums on 90% to trade into more ounces of .999, so going forward it should be less of an issue for me. I don't think the Chinese are counterfeiting 1986 Santa Claus rounds yet.

Sorry LT

You are not safe
Guangdong is in the 1974 christmas silver business at a buck fifty each
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/64642 ... Z_999.html

oh man! please forgive me Thog, but i'm thinking some ugly shite right now......could you call some of your buds, see if we can charter a b-52 for 36 hours packed with a full load of 500 lb dumb bombs at the "friend's rate"?

no, belay that last....that would cause an international incident. sorry man.

[68Camaro]

BTW re gold, many of the better major dealers are already xraying their non mint buys in gold.

[scyther]

BTW re gold, many of the better major dealers are already xraying their non mint buys in gold.

Glad to hear that. I wish they would do it for silver too. Is it too expensive or something?

[Engineer]

BTW re gold, many of the better major dealers are already xraying their non mint buys in gold.

Glad to hear that. I wish they would do it for silver too. Is it too expensive or something?

If gold is 50x more expensive than silver, you'd expect to sell 50x more silver than gold...so XRF'ing the silver may not be worth their time until major problems arise.

I'm sure the big dealers can afford $17k for an XRF scanner, but they probably won't use them on bags of mercs or roosies until there's enough fraud to justify the labor and/or extra equipment.

[gubni]

fake .999 ASE

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/75291 ... berty.html

[neilgin1]

fake .999 ASE

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/75291 ... berty.html

this is simply atrocious. Simply put its counterfeiting. Sure they can play games by listing it as a "souvenir"...or as "folk art", but its outright counterfeiting.

and to think they went after the fella that did the Liberty Dollars, who was straight up and selling .999 Ag rounds, when this crap is ALLOWED to go, and be sold thru alibaba dot com in mininum putchases of 1000 pieces, and its even bagged in 500 piece units, there are empy green monster boxes for sale, empty mints tubes for sale.....so crap like this, being allowed, will just kill us, both in the short and long term.

i want to start a new thread, with ideas of how we counter this. Believe me, the kind of last thing i want to do, is get cozy with dot gov types....but i got some thoughts and idea's. There is a huge base of knowledge here, AND if this is unchecked, its disaster for any stacker. Please tell me if you think i'm just hyperventitaling.....off to the new thread.

[beauanderos]

fake .999 ASE

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/75291 ... berty.html

Verified Supplier - Shenzhen Shun Xin Da Handicraft Co., Ltd.
[ Guangdong, China (Mainland) ]
Business type: Trading Company
Main Products: Book Mark,Money Clip,Badges,Keychain,Hardware Products
Online Showroom: 11,286 Products

[mtldealer]

XRF scanner... Non destructive kind has issues with plated material. Our business has one and I test my metal. Yu gotta have a bunch of ways to test and have the metal pass all of them.

[neilgin1]

XRF scanner... Non destructive kind has issues with plated material. Our business has one and I test my metal. Yu gotta have a bunch of ways to test and have the metal pass all of them.

scanners are definitely beneficials. tariffs and taxes enacted for these products .....slap a 100% tariff on chinese sellers of American design "souvenir" coins sold and shipped to the US is quite another. along with a whole list of puntative penalties for American who buy product from these sellers are another avenue.

i'm solid libertarian, and impediments to free trade is not , or tariif's or taxes, is not my defaut stance, but this is all together different.

[TwoPenniesEarned]

I buy a lot of NGC MS69 ASE's. If you buy them right there is a premium of course but I feel pretty secure in knowing they are real and when i buy in bulk they really are not that bad in terms of price. Are there people faking slabbed ASE's? I figured with Hologram and other things built in I'd be pretty safe. And the work involved to fake would be pretty rough.

It's very scary to think you are buying clad thinking all along you are getting real silver.
Thanks for posting this thread and to everyone chiming in with their tips/ideas

Joe

Nope. They are knocking off the holograms too. Check out this one:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Replica- ... 56551.html

Canadian 80% never looked so good.

[beauanderos]

I buy a lot of NGC MS69 ASE's. If you buy them right there is a premium of course but I feel pretty secure in knowing they are real and when i buy in bulk they really are not that bad in terms of price. Are there people faking slabbed ASE's? I figured with Hologram and other things built in I'd be pretty safe. And the work involved to fake would be pretty rough.

It's very scary to think you are buying clad thinking all along you are getting real silver.
Thanks for posting this thread and to everyone chiming in with their tips/ideas

Joe

Nope. They are knocking off the holograms too. Check out this one:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Replica- ... 56551.html

Canadian 80% never looked so good.

don't be so sure

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/505108209/Canada_custom_challenge_silver_coin.html

[TwoPenniesEarned]

Canadian 80% never looked so good.

don't be so sure

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/505108209/Canada_custom_challenge_silver_coin.html

DAMNIT! Man I'm so glad I've already loaded up on junk. Perhaps it's time to taper my purchases of physical silver and start focusing on mining companies.

[IdahoCopper]

List of Secret Service field offices:

http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices.shtml

I google'd 'reporting counterfeit currency' and found that list. These offices are where you report fake money.

One other thing RC members can do is, those who post in other Ag/Au forums can spread the word about this effort to stop the imports, and recruit others to act in concert with us.

[NDFarmer]

I'm sure the big dealers can afford $17k for an XRF scanner, but they probably won't use them on bags of mercs or roosies until there's enough fraud to justify the labor and/or extra equipment.

It won't be a problem for most dealers to get the equipment needed to verify the authenticity of coins. They will just charge an authenticity fee. So every coin you bring in will get scanned and they will charge you 5 - 10 %. Just another income stream for them. Bring in a roll of Morgans and get a $30.00 authentication fee.

[silvor]

I buy a lot of NGC MS69 ASE's. If you buy them right there is a premium of course but I feel pretty secure in knowing they are real and when i buy in bulk they really are not that bad in terms of price. Are there people faking slabbed ASE's? I figured with Hologram and other things built in I'd be pretty safe. And the work involved to fake would be pretty rough.

It's very scary to think you are buying clad thinking all along you are getting real silver.
Thanks for posting this thread and to everyone chiming in with their tips/ideas

Joe

Nope. They are knocking off the holograms too. Check out this one:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Replica- ... 56551.html

Canadian 80% never looked so good.

don't be so sure

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/505108209/Canada_custom_challenge_silver_coin.html

If you notice, ANY of those shops can copy ANYTHING and make them to your specs.