A simple Google search for genuine "Mineral Art coin" linked to this page in the top 7 links: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/pro...oscow-2-Oz-Silver-Coin/434131_1506397270.html Yikes! Try to stick with reputable dealers as much as possible for all your coin purchases. .
Absolutely disgusting these fakes are so readily available, and by the bucket load too. But i have to make the point that to say never to buy except from a reputable dealer is unfair to the private seller with the genuine thing. If these fakes were any good i would totally agree. But they aren't any good at all. They're absolute rubbish copies. The pictures on that guys site are of the real coin, not the copy. Let's not needlessly put the fear of God into people that the fakes (as is suggested by that site) are of such quality they can't be told apart! Buy with confidence from genuine sellers listing genuine articles whether they are on ebay or forums, as well as your main dealers. In the past, i gathered a few pictures off ebay of these fake Kremlins being auctioned. They are laughable. I began circling the obvious differences on the fake, but soon gave up as it was apparant basically the whole thing was so p**s poor. (Genuine on left, fake on right with highlights in red)
Moor's Law will eventually close the gap completely and there will be no difference. They will be producing real replicas and it will effect numi valuation across the board. Only a matter of time before those cnc laser engravers are available and affordable to the average person.
This is an important point that applies across broad classes of collectables, particularly when advances in additative manufacturing technologies (3D printing, nanotech assemblers) eventually supplant or enhance traditional and subtractive manufacturing processes (CNC, casting, pressing, etc).
All of you have made excellent points. I do believe that it may be only a matter of time that the fakes for certain coins become so good that only experts will be able to tell them apart from the real thing. The best first way to address this here at home is to severely punish (jail and / or steep fines) those who knowingly try to sell these as real. I highly doubt there can be any inroads into getting China to deem the making of such fakes illegal so I don't think that route is of much use to anyone. .
When not if the techniques used by mints does become cheaper to the point where bad folk can afford it then experts would never know the difference. When a jewellers copy is exact it's very difficult to tell. Sophisticated cad/cam machines could well produce better copies than ever before and with old coins better than the real thing. A copy of a rare panda could fetch huge premiums on one coin. That's the danger!
I believe that mints like RCM are on the right track with new design technology like that on the 2014 CML silver bullion coin (radial lines and micro-engraving). The best mints will try to stay a step ahead of the bad guys and it looks like the RCM is one of the leaders in this area. .
Yes, The RCM are on the right track all right. No forger has been able to make their coins develop milky spots. Lookout for the genuine milky spots from the RCM. Everything else is a forgery.
I have ended up whith quite a few fakes from ebay, both from Australia and overseas sellers. As I always pay via Pay Pal for Ebay items all I have to do is give Pay Pal a call, explain it is a fake and they then raise a case. Most of the time the seller does not even respond to the messages he gets and the case is closed in my favour. This means I don't pay for the coins or postage and I get to keep the coins, fakes that they are. Even better I use the Pay Pal pay in 21 days system so no money has even left my account. My daughter has a few "very nice" copper filled silver pandas!!!
When you have the time maybe you can post some of those real v fakes photos of that panda and anything else you came across over the years it would help educate us SS'ers
For Panda fakes go to this place for details. http://www.pandacollector.com/rogue.html The ones I gave to my daughter were very good fakes but if you follow the diagrams on that site you will notice the inconsistancies. Piece of bamboo missing or wrong number of temple rails. Other coins have included Russian gold rubles which were very easy to pick as the they were not gold!!!
The image of the panda was pretty spot on. They came sealed in those packets to hide the thickness but I opened it just to make sure. I think they were hoping you'd want to keep them sealed. Paypal doesn't always make the right call. I had to pay to return a fake superman coin back to the seller. I called and ask why I should have to pay to return an illegal product in the first place, I was told they have to be fair to both sides. I paid close to $120 for the coin so by no means did I think I was getting a deal on the coin and the seller claimed the product to be an official product.
@ danman, what about the weight on the fake Pandas you received...do they match actual specs for real Pandas? .
If you want to blame, you should really blame Google for including the fake one with the Genuine search, since the listing said very CLEAR, "Brand Name: Russia Replica Coins" It is NOT even a Chinese fake!
I didn't use a .00 scale but it was 31.X grams, so pretty spot on in all accounts but they can't copy the density of silver.
I was looking for a genuine coin; my search words were "Mineral Art coin". No one is to blame....I was merely shocked to learn that there are fakes being made of a whole variety of coins. I only have seen in the past, more common type coin replicas being sold (ASE's as just one example)....I had no idea there are replicas / fakes being made of even Mineral Art coins and similar unusual collector coins. In that case, they have to make the fake thicker or larger, yes? At least until they figure out how to get the density almost identical also. .
I did not bother taking them out of the capsule to weigh as I had spotted a couple of inconsistancies and then had them XRFed (thank you gold diggers). Yep copper filled. So would have been under weight.
