Hi dccpa, It's not illegal in China to advertise, make, nor sell. It's also not illegal if you are from the USA to buy replicas / fakes from China. That's my point. Also, I have read and anecdotally heard mixed stories about decoys. For some it has worked, for others it hasn't. But to claim, as you have, that when a burglar sees high quality imitations that 1) somehow the burglar is the keenest expert in the world in identifying during a break-in what is and what isn't genuine bars / coins and will determine in a moments time what the composition is that 2) this will automatically mean that there is stuff worth finding, is silly in my view. It doesn't even make much sense when you think about it. The majority of burglaries are not carried out by pm experts...any law enforcement agent can confirm this. .
"The majority of burglaries are not carried out by pm experts...any law enforcement agent can confirm this." exactly! I can also confirm that majority of burglars are just basically no that bright full stop. I think it's pretty disgusting that these fake coin producers are able to operate..Nothaus got slammed for just putting $ on his coins and they WERE real silver If you you want decoy PMs there's plenty of 'legal' stuff that can be used..This kind of thing has the potential to ruin the PM market or at least make it very difficult.
The fake APMEX bars on that site are even advertised as "non magnetic". Now why would the collector of fake silver care about that? This practice makes me ill. These products exist for the sole purpose of ripping off the unsuspecting buyer. Sites like these are just the spring board for getting this garbage into general circulation for use by other crooks. There is no defending these products.
A thief in the US doesn't need to be an expert to be familiar with what an American Eagle is. I would guess the same thing applies in Australia with Lunar coins. So your theory falls apart because it rests on thieves not having a clue as to what a typical silver coin looks like. Most probably do. What most wouldn't be able to do is determine with any certainty whether a well made imitation is the real thing or not. Therefore, decoys that are well made imitations would NOT spawn any suspicion by most thieves that there was "real" pm's hidden somewhere else because the vast majority of thieves are not qualified to make authentication assessments in the middle of their burglary. They will, in all likelihood, assume that they got the best goods and may never even bother to check your large flower pots with false bottoms for the real pm's or wherever you might stash some of your stuff. If I lived in Australia I just might get those imitation horses as decoys. And besides, I thought most stackers only buy from reputable suppliers; suppliers whose sources are the mint's themselves or other reputable sellers. You won't find these imitations in such suppliers inventories. Clearly for $199 for 100 coins, these are not being sold as genuine coins. And if someone buys these to resell them as genuine, that's a crime in the US and I'm sure in every major country. If someone tries to sell you a fake, you contact the authorities. . .
We've covered why this is such a stupid idea in other threads. Burglar grabs your fake coins and runs for it thinking they have made a good score. Burglar tries to sell your stack to a scrap dealer and then finds out they are fake. Burglar obviously has been made a fool and has nothing Burglar comes back, with some friends, to teach the smart arse (ie you) a lesson and to get hold of the real stack that must obviously be somewhere
This. For the last time, buying decoy bullion is a fool's errand. You really want to be the guy with the house where a bunch of fake bullion came from and made the burglar look like an idiot at the local gold buying kiosk when they got told they had a bunch of fakes?
There are a lot of maybes, mights, and uncertainties in your statement. What is certain though is that by buying these "replicas" you are providing financial support to people making items that eat away at the trust and resale value of PMs and numis.
That's a good point and actually the best case against buying imitations / fakes. As for a burglary, if successful, it shows the business / home owner the weak point in their system and naturally the owner will fix the weakest points of that system and will generally make overall improvements. Most thieves (even the dumber ones, but certainly the savvy ones) know this and don't go back to a place they've already hit....the risk becomes too high and thieves look for low risk situations instead. So, to claim that the thief will throw a pissy-fit tantrum and come back to the same location because of that is not even realistic. There's also no more assurance whatsoever for the thief that the owner who has decoy imitation coins also has real pm's hidden on the same property. For example, one may put imitation coins in their business or home in the right place to divert attention from the most valuable items the business / home owner has which are items that might be plainly visible (which can be anything from a super high end music system, to high end furniture, to specialized equipment, very valuable designer clothing or even paintings hanging on the walls. There's no reason to necessarily assume that there would be any other type of valuables other than what is out in the open in that facility / home. The decoys might be perfect for diverting attention from those out in the open, valuable items. .
more and more and more, this time "Year of the rabbit" http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/1264971507/2011_AUSTRALIA_SILVER_CLAD_1_OZ.html Why PM is not able to stop this
Just looked at the link on the counterfeit horses and noticed they have also duplicated the PM coins by shrink wrapping the counterfeits in rolls of 20.
Very scary and hopefully the big countries such as Canada, Australia, Germany, USA will treat these items as banned goods and confiscate them during shipments. They look too real and many people will be fooled. I thought I was safe when buying 1 oz. rounds/bar and 10 oz. bars but obviously not. You sneak in 1-3 of these inside a tube and just made yourself an extra $60+. Not everyone has the time to test out a tube of 20-25. I have only dealt with only 3 dealerships (SilverGoldBull, Provident Metals and Gainesville Coins). I trust PM and GC, SGB I have dealt with them only 1 but have another order coming to me. Hopefully someone has dealt with SGB longer than that and can tell me they are reputable. I will be trying to only purchase Sunshine Mints now with their security emblem but how long until people start replicating those. My "Conspiracy Theory" thoughts are that the Fiat currency people are loving this so that people will be scared and shift away from precious metals.
That link has a lot of scary information. Notice that they have "over 200 products in stock". Sure, a lot of them probably look like crap, but maybe not. The pros will not be fooled but think of the many casual collectors that will or just some grandma wanting to buy a little PM. I agree, stick to the online places and LCS you can trust.
