Your resource for identifying counterfeit bullion.
I am excited to finally unveil this project publicly. I started acquiring samples of counterfeits more than two years ago and first posted some comparisons way back in April 2013. Those simple infographics got quite a bit of attention and some of them were even published in the June 2015 edition of Lost Treasure Magazine.
In the 2+ years since those early posts I have seen numerous new fakes emerge, have seen significant improvements in the quality of fakes, have acquired dozens of additional counterfeit samples (some coming from helpful Realcent and Bullionstacker members, thanks guys!), have seen the number of fakes on eBay escalate to disturbing levels, ran a gigantic group buy for Precious Metal Verifiers, and have even spotted a few fakes in the Buy/Sell/Trade threads that slipped past experienced stackers on these forums
. It became more and more apparent that the coin and bullion community needs a central resource for cataloging and identifying this stuff.For over a year now I have been working in my "spare time" (ha!) to bring that resource to market. FakeBullion.com is home to the Fake Bullion Database, a central catalog of known counterfeits featuring side-by-side comparisons, detailed photos, and more in-depth discussion than what my old infographics provided. The Identification section features how-to articles (and videos will come later) explaining various testing methods and tools. There is a News section for relevant media stories and a Blog for commentary.
There is also a Forum for Supporting Members. Acquiring samples, generating content, and building and hosting the website doesn't come cheap. As a thank-you to those who wish to contribute to the project, Supporting Members get to see new entries in the Database 60 days before the general public, and get access to the Forum. I will still be active on Realcent and BullionStacker, but going forward my efforts in regards to counterfeits will primarily be focused on the FakeBullion.com site.
Right now there is a limited amount of content...about a dozen items in the Database and three identification articles. I have close to 100 unique fakes on hand and other testing techniques to discuss, so I will be adding new content weekly. I also plan to make videos to supplement the written articles. But it's time to launch the site and start getting the information out there (and start recouping expenses!).
Before somebody says it, because I know it will come up... Doesn't this site also help the bad guys? In short, sure, it might. However, the counterfeiters have already made revisions and improvements to the fakes, long before this site. To name just a few, the 1 oz Engelhard bars, ASEs of numerous different years, and Pamp and Perth bars in several sizes (2.5g, 5g, 10g, 20g, 1 oz) exist in 2-3 generations, each one improving details over the last. The manufacturers get feedback from their customers (the scammers buying them in bulk), they don't rely on surfing the web to improve their "craft." Secondly, I do have two measures in place to block as much traffic from China as possible. Of course there are always ways to get around that.
More importantly, the benefits of getting this information out to dealers and stackers far outweighs the theoretical risk. We can't stick our heads in the sand and pretend fakes don't exist, or try to hide them out of fear of scaring off potential buyers. They exist, hundreds of thousands of them, and they are becoming more common and more problematic. No government organization can fix the problem, even if they wanted to. It's up to the coin and bullion community and industry to protect itself. Doing your own due diligence is more important now than ever, and FakeBullion.com will be a great resource for that process.
Stack safely!
