Counterfeits and the future of modern chinese coins.

Some of you might have been following the recent discussions in the silver forums over some very attractive faked 1oz bars. Nearly all of you will be aware of the sheer volume of counterfeit 2000 Mirror Pandas currently on eBay, and infiltrating dealer stocks.

Currently, these products, while very convincing, are ultimately outed as fakes by the fact they are made from anything except silver. File testing, or nitric acid testing, or even Xray testing all provide a conclusive result.

This sort of market behaviour is devastating for each individual stung, but it has no impact on the rest of the market.

What happens when MCC counterfeiters start minting coins from .999 silver planchets and counterfeit dies? considering the skill and artistry that goes into the current generation of counterfeit pandas, it seems only reasonable to me, a well made .999 counterfeit will be close to indistinguishable from a genuine article.

Will this sort of activity place a price cap on each coin? It is all well and good to own a coin with a mintage of 5000, however I feel it is a fair assessment that its value would be significantly undermined by 5-10 thousand high quality counterfeit products entering the market over a short space of time.

Some might suggest that this kind of event would increase the value of slabbed and graded product, but are we all confident NGC will be able to distinguish between a genuine minted .999 coin and a coin made from the same material minted from a new die painstakingly crafted to look as close to the original as possible. This is especially relevant considering the mystery surrounding some mint variations, as well as the varying quality of strike on many pre 2000 coins.

Personally I feel there is currently not enough margin on most Panda's to consider making .999 counterfeit coins, however if the market is headed in the direction a lot of us are expecting (hoping) we all face a real challenge.

 

I feel pretty confident that if there were such masters of fakery out there... a Panda coin is unlikely to be their target.

1804 silver dollar - worth $2.3million, and is an incredibly simple design.

1930 bronze penny - worth $30,000 for a VF condition coin (upwards of $100,000 for an uncirculated one), and is an incredibly simple design made out of a base metal.
[imgz=http://forums.silverstackers.com/uploads/675_1930detr.gif][/imgz]

There are just as many bronze pennies floating around as there are 2000 Mirrored Pandas. So far the 1930s Pennies have been doing fairly well... and their fakes have been distinguishable for the last 80 odd years... Hopefully the Pandas should be safe for another 80years or more too

 

I agree it is always a concern and a risk, at the moment the best you can do is get in early and buy from reputable dealers. This should hopefully reduce the risk. I don't say you will never have risk because you will. Unless something is done to make an example in mainly China, but you could assume other countries would be involved in some coin counterfeiting, perhaps not as large a scale. I don't see anything changing in the mid to long term

DYODD is all you can do, invest in knowledge.

 

A current and future challenge ahead is for the USD notes... the supernotes are alleged to exist by the US government, and are better than the originals!



"A superdollar (also known as a superbill or supernote) is a very high quality counterfeit United States one hundred-dollar bill, alleged by the U.S. Government to have been made by an unknown organization or government...The name derives from the fact that the quality of the notes exceeds that of the originals." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar

"How significant might this assault be? For many years, U.S. agencies have claimed in public that the quantity of supernotes in worldwide circulation amounts to only about $50 million... But according to Syung Je Park, in 2007 North Korea bought a huge amount of the special Fourdrinier paper"enough to print $2 billion.""
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/09/office-39-200909

 

Counterfeits are one of the (many) reasons to buy graded. You can verify the certification with the grading company and then they guarantee authenticity.

 

Its a small quantity. If you add the qe1, qe2 and the next qe3.
And the speed of the print press.
Here in argentina. one year ago the print press at maximum velocity dont enough. We ask brasil to make notes for us.
Now the inflation is more than 80% in some products than 1 year ago.
I think usa and europa go for the same path.

 

You will find that anything that is expensive will have counterfeits.

This include antiques, coins, Cisco gear, LV/Gucci etc

The effects of counterfeits on the price of the original can be seen (negligible).

 

It is amazing how on so many sites there is always chatter about Chinese fake coins. And alot of those that keep saying "I would never buy any Chinese coins too many fakes" I remember on anoter site how one guy kept telling eveyone that he would only get coins from Perth Mint. How the worm has turned, I have noticed how the Famed Perth Mint Year of Dragon silver coin has fallen victim to counterfeiting. No matter what it is Coins, clothes, shoes ect if they have a wide appeal they sooner or later fall victim to counterfeiting.
It's something that we all need to be vigilant about. And from what I have seen on here the last few days since joining more forums like this one will help us learn more and hopefully not fall victim.

 

I'm glad they avoided Chinese coins due to their paranoia of fakes or in some cases Sinophobia. Makes it easier for me to buy them at lower prices due to less competition.

Also since fakes are to be expected, I and others more carefully analyze our buys to make sure we're getting the real deal instead of blindly buying (especially OMP).

It's no surprise to me that there are now fake Perth Mint coins, fake Maples, (no fake ASEs yet but not that far off I bet), fake Libertads, fake scottsdale bars, fake Pan Am bars and so on.

As a Panda buyer, I am honestly laughing at these people who thought their beloved bullion was untouchable.

"I avoid Pandas because there are fakes."

They better avoid every Perth Mint coin, every maple, every scottsdale bar, every libertad and Pan am bar.

<snide smile>

 

I just got back from vacationing in Aruba. There was one gem store that also had coins of a few varieties, including shipwreck coins (pretty cool). They happened to have one panda. I was excited. A gold, 1994, 1/4 oz. But... it was a fake. What are the odds? Was the size and weight of a 1/4 oz., but had the wrong denomination and the 1/4 was pretty hard to make out. Silly. Regardless I was disappointed, but the point that I was working up to... in all of the shows and shops and auctions I've gone through over the years, fake pandas far outnumber any other variety of coin that I have seen. Just my observation; I'll still collect the real ones.

 

It's worth saying again +1

 

+1 Some people are just beginning their lesson in this.

There seems to be some denial about what constitutes a fake ASE. Try explaining that there are no fake ASEs to people that have purchased them thinking they are real.

http://forums.silverstackers.com/to...-ebay-1906-walking-liberty-silver-dollar.html

http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-11108-fake-american-silver-eagles.html ... I told you so...

 

well its best to AVOID gold and silver too in all shorts and forms

he must be on silver again....

he must be with the gold again....

do you know the gold shorts, they own a lot of gold too

worst is the silver shorts, they own even more silver

best is to give up all the paper/plastic or banksters digits and get the metals in skin and flesh and STOP shorting them!

getting some kiwis and kangaroos 2013

 

It's funny how many people wont buy Pandas because of the amout of fakes. So if you go by this way of thinking you shouldnt buy any DVDs or blu ray discs. I'm sure they would have to top the list for fakes.

 

I don't buy DVDs or BDs

But seriously, I have never heard anyone say "I am not buying that Gucci/LV/Burberry bag because there are lots of fakes out there".

 

But most people don't buy an item with the express idea of selling it on later... with silver they do

 

I know lots of people who buy DVDs watch them then resell them... same with PS3/PC games...they bought with the intention of reselling at a future date (after they're done using them of course).

Luxury goods like LV/Gucci may be a different situation but then again those aren't really for reselling, they're status symbols for showing off. If there were really that many fakes everywhere such that it affected the value/resell value of the real item then by extension the status symbol value would also be affected.

However we can see this is not the case (at least for LV/Gucci, their sales are still strong).

ps. I do see what you mean by reselling silver/pandas whatever, definitely makes sense to consider when you buy whether or not you can resell it.

 

Depending on which year of panda coin are you talking about. For any year before 2009, there are still enough margin for the fake ones, that is if they could sell them. I would not buy them myself for sure

Any panda coins from 2010 will have little margin, especially from 2011, due to the legal mintage is so big.

 

Here is geat article on the Chinese counterfiet culture by Michael Backman
March 28, 2007


http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-279210.html#p279210

 

Given there are fake maples and fake 'generic' silver 1oz bars, the cost of manufacturing these fakes must be below the silver spot price and I'd guess 1/10th of the spot price seems around right.

I know there are fake 2011 pandas out there, they look buttugly and obvious but they're out there.

The bastard sellers are definitely making a decent margin on selling fakes (if they sell) even if they are 2011/2010 pandas.