Introducing FakeBullion.com

[natsb88]

I'm working to get caught up on cataloging fakes and will be updating the "wanted to borrow" list soon. The majority of the items in the photo are not in the Fake Bullion Database yet, and there are plenty more recent fakes I don't have yet

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[Rodebaugh]

Incredible! What a treasure trove of deception

[natsb88]

Persons of Interest in Counterfeit/Kidnapping/Homicide Cases



Lincoln, NE - The Lincoln Nebraska Police Department requested assistance on a counterfeit coin case in June of this year. Detectives are now investigating a kidnapping/homicide of a female with subjects pictured above as persons of interest. The investigation has revealed that these two subjects have traveled the the Central Plains and possible Southeast, defrauding individuals with counterfeit coins.

Read more on FakeBullion.com

[natsb88]

End of the year bump!

If anybody is feeling generous (or maybe slightly inebriated) heading into New Year's Eve, FakeBullion.com is currently sitting on a loss of $800 for 2017, and $3000 over the life of the company. My wages are $0.00/hour times a lot of hours. This is a terrible business plan.

Where are our new Bitcoin billionaires? Crypto welcome.

Also this update:

I recently spent 40+ hours organizing a mess of fakes and updating my spreadsheet. I moved the "Wanted to Borrow" list to the FakeBullion.com site so I can point multiple audiences there and edit and update one central list. There are currently over 300 items on the list, there are a few dozen I still need to add, and I haven't even started to go through the pile of counterfeit 90% silver and pre-33 gold.



https://www.fakebullion.com/index.php/140-wanted-list

[natsb88]

I now have a contact with some inroads to eBay. If you see fakes on eBay, send me a link, and there's a good chance we can get them taken down.

[highroller4321]

I now have a contact with some inroads to eBay. If you see fakes on eBay, send me a link, and there's a good chance we can get them taken down.

How did you manage that.

They only seem to care if you have like 50 people flag the auctions. When there was a slew of counterfeit engelhards I was a part of a group that would all report it, so that it would get taken down!

[natsb88]

Just added 80 new items to the "Wanted to Borrow" list, growing it to more than 400.

https://www.fakebullion.com/index.php/140-wanted-list

[natsb88]

Three new items added to the Fake Bullion Database in the past seven days. Hope to get a couple more up this weekend. Thanks to MaxGravy for letting me borrow a bunch of genuine items to scan and document

[highroller4321]

Three new items added to the Fake Bullion Database in the past seven days. Hope to get a couple more up this weekend. Thanks to MaxGravy for letting me borrow a bunch of genuine items to scan and document

[natsb88]

Two more items added to the database this evening while watching my March Madness bracket fall apart...

[Robarons]

Thanks for everything you do- always good to see the new stuff.

[natsb88]

FAKE ENGELHARD INGOTS HIT MARKET

From AllEngelhard.com and AGWire™ - "Over the past two weeks, there has been an unrelenting buzz within our community regarding a portfolio of unfamiliar ‘Engelhard’ ingots coming to market from Kyle Anastasiou, in Ontario, Canada."

Read more at FakeBullion.com

[natsb88]

Moorestown Man Impersonated ATF Agent, Sold Counterfeit Gold

MOORESTOWN, NJ — A Moorestown man has admitted that he impersonated a federal agent while selling counterfeit coins and unlawfully importing counterfeit gold coins and bars into the United States, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced on Monday.

Jonathan A. Kirschner, a/k/a "Jonathan Kratcher," 34, pleaded guilty to an information charging him with one count of falsely impersonating an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and one count of unlawfully bringing counterfeit coins and bars into the United States.

Read more at FakeBullion.com

[natsb88]

Silver, gold American Eagles most counterfeited bullion coins

A new survey conducted by the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force (ACTF) indicates the popular U.S. bullion coins are now leaders in a category their manufacturer would rather not be in — the most frequently encountered bullion coin counterfeits.

Read more at FakeBullion.com

[natsb88]

Seller of Counterfeit NGC Holders Brought to Justice

Numismatic Guaranty Corporation® (NGC®) reports that a seller of counterfeit coins in counterfeit NGC holders has pleaded guilty to importing counterfeit coins and bars into the United States. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Read more at FakeBullion.com

[highroller4321]

Seller of Counterfeit NGC Holders Brought to Justice

Numismatic Guaranty Corporation® (NGC®) reports that a seller of counterfeit coins in counterfeit NGC holders has pleaded guilty to importing counterfeit coins and bars into the United States. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Read more at FakeBullion.com

Hopefully these grading companies are actually starting to care about counterfeit slabs!

[natsb88]

Four items added to the Fake Bullion Database in the last three days.

[natsb88]

Chinese online firm offering counterfeit holder ‘starter kits’

A Chinese online distributor of counterfeit United States coins is now offering what amount to “starter kits” of counterfeit Professional Coin Grading Service holders with fake grading labels.

PCGS President Don Willis said little can be done legally to combat the counterfeiting until the material hits American soil.

Click for more.

[natsb88]

Special ACTF Exhibit of Counterfeit Coins, Bars at ANA Word’s Fair of Money

The Industry Council for Tangible Assets Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force will exhibit a five-case display of counterfeit coins, precious metals bars, and grading holders during the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money Aug. 14-18 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

Click for more.

[natsb88]

A total of 8 new items were added to the Fake Bullion Database in July. Active donors can access new items right away. Non-donors have to wait until the entries go public after 60 days.

[natsb88]

Here is some newer counterfeit Perth gold. These are severely under weight, simple to identify with a scale. Will be wanting to borrow genuine items to do comparisons if anybody happens to have some.

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preview32_small.jpg (43.62 KiB) Viewed 8744 times

[natsb88]

Video: Counterfeit 2009 Gold Maple in Counterfeit NGC Slab

Thanks to Mike at Market Harmony for this one

https://www.fakebullion.com/index.php/n ... t-ngc-slab

(click the link to watch the video, the image is just a thumbnail)

[natsb88]

So life is crazy busy and I have been slacking on this website.

But I've put a good 50+ hours into it over the last three weeks.

Unfortunately a lot of that effort was behind the scenes and won't make much difference on the front end.

I migrated the site to a different host. The previous architecture was good in that it was structured to allow for lots of redundancy and growth. It was bad in that it was essentially unmanaged and required a lot of attention and maintenance that I'm not good at and got tired of dealing with. Some upcoming changes scheduled for February and March would have broken the site so I was at a crossroads and decided to move it.

The new host should be more than sufficient for the level of traffic the site currently receives, but more importantly, it requires much less attention from me on the back end and has some customer support for the specific CMS I am using. So going forward, when I have an hour or two to throw at the site, it will be more for new content creation and less for boring back end maintenance.

After the move I spent lots of time getting the content management software and a dozen different plug-ins from a dozen different authors up to date, which was necessary to get the site to run on a newer version of php.

As part of that process I had to replace the filter/search module for the Fake Bullion Database. The new filter looks a little different but functions similarly, and the database now has a keyword search feature, something that was lacking on the old filter.

I also added a cryptocurrency gateway to the membership/donation system. Select cryptos (currently BTC, LTC, ETH, NEO, PIVX, and QTUM) can be used for the Yearly (non-recurring) and Lifetime options, and for straight donations. I could use some help testing this if anybody is willing to throw a little crypto at the site.

I got caught up on six months worth of Google alerts and added a dozen stories to the News section.

I also got rid of the ads. The only ads running were referral ads. They only paid if a customer clicked through and bought something within a set time frame. The payouts for those programs have steadily decreased, and they haven't generated any revenue for the last 2+ years. If a company is interested in some kind of sponsorship deal in the future, I will certainly entertain it, but for now, the ads are gone. That also allowed me to rearrange things a bit to work better with the new database filter layout.

But it also means I am relying 100% on donations and memberships to keep the site afloat.

Please check out the site and let me know if you find anything amiss. I welcome feedback on the new database filter and anything I may be able to tweak to improve the user experience.

Now that the bulk of the boring web development stuff is out of the way, the next work session will be focused on adding new items to the Fake Bullion Database

A big thanks to all of the existing donors for sticking with me through the slow times and helping to offset the bills.

[mflugher]

I recently handled a fake Perth mint 1 ozt bar similar to the one on fakebullion.com. Upon comparing to real ones I had on hand the easiest distinguishing difference is the fakes did not rattle when shaken, Its like the bar was too big (which it was obviously too thick visually) and the plastic bubble was same size so the bar would not shake and rattle inside the package.

I did not examine the bar long enough to take measurements, but I suggest you look to see if any of your fake bars in assay cards have a similar difference that is so easy to spot without special equipment.

[thecrazyone]

Just stumbled upon this site last night- great job!!