Fake 1984 Panda 1/20 oz

Not sure wether to post this here or in fakes. Figure it will get more attention here than in fakes and I didn't buy it from China. I purchased this from a forum member in April along with another 2 Pandas from different years.

Yesterday I had the good fortune to meet face to face with another local guy whom I purchased a couple of Pandas from. He had testing gear with him so I asked if I could bring along a few other items that I'd purchased through SS and have tested for purity. Anyway, the good news was that everything checked out okay, except for this one item.

I've sinced emailed the seller but as yet had no reply. I'll give him a few days before taking it further. There's every chance he didn't know he was holding a fake so the mistake may have been just that. The item was in 'original mint packaging' which we removed to further test after not getting a result through the packaging. Have attached photo's for future reference. If anyone has an original photo to post then that would be appreciated to see what differences there may be. I have to also say that the coin looked much better inside the packaging before being unwrapped than it does now in the photo's that have been enlarged.

Pics below -

 

What did the outer package look like?

 

How can the seller now be sure that this coin is the same as the one he sold you if it was some time ago?

 

Because there was a third party witness who I had never met before who also supplied the cutters so that it could be removed for further testing. He has a credible reputation on this forum and nothing to gain from this situation. I'd prefer to not drag him into this unless absolutely necessary.

Will post a pic of whats left of the "original mint packaging" along with photos of the other items purchased at the same time.

Still waiting to hear from the seller...

 

Photo's attached of the three items purchased in the transaction. The one with the reddish coloured packaging on the left in the first photo was the one that returned a result of no gold content. The other two items at least returned a gold content reading, however the other 1/20th Panda's I've purchased since have come in much larger "OMP"

My main concern is had I gone to sell this at a later date and the person knew more about these than me then they'd think I was trying to stitch them up then I'd look like a fraudster as far as this forum goes...

Pics below -

 

Hello,

Just to assist, I was the third party that tested Androids bullion with a precious metals verifier. He had quite a lot of items I tested and most much larger in value than this coin. All came up trumps except this one panda which was not even close.

In saying this I know Android would much prefer that this coin was genuine rather that tarnish his name over a 1/20oz gold coin. We discussed it and I believe that the person who sold it to him most likely did not know either. The coin does look really good to the eye, as I needed to get to work I forgot to weigh the coin, so Android I suggest getting some good scales and weighing it as a secondary measure to see if they got the weight spot on. Should be about 1.55 to 1.56 grams.

Have just done a quick image search for 1/20 1984 panda and there are quite a few ebay photo's up, some coins look good and some just don't have the definition.

Also check this out, there is a 1984 although 1/4oz http://www.pandacollector.com/rogue.html

There is no doubt though that this coin is a forgery, just be glad it's a small $$ item I guess. Hope it all works out for you.

 

Thanks for stepping up Bear - much appreciated as I didn't really want to drag you into this.

I weighed the coin and it came in at 1.562 grams on my cheap $10 Chinese made scales. Close enough to correct weight so I guess it's a pretty good fake.

I still haven't heard anything back from the seller and it's been long enough now. I'm going to write this one off as a lesson learned, however looking at the sellers feedback it would appear he has sold other Panda's prior to mine, so potentially others could be unknowingly holding fakes, wether the initial trade was intentionality fraudulent or not.

I remember someone advertising wanting fakes to help education in the i.d problem coins. If you're reading this just let me know and am happy to forward for further research.

Again , thanks once again Metal B for taking the time out to test my material and for backing me up in this post.

Cheers mate.

 

Here is a link to a good panda site with a guide to fake coins:

http://www.pandacollector.com/rogue.html#1984

can I if the reading came back as containing copper or similar?

 

Thanks Danman,

I did check out that site but due to the size differences there wasn't anything as a true baseline to compare it to.

I've since sent the coin off to a felllow member who will do further testing etc and hopefully post the results in this thread once complete.

The one good thing to come out of all of this (even though at my expense) is that there's once less fake coin in ciculation. And hopefully with the photo's and further information to come someone else may be prevented from losing their money on a fake.

Cheers.

P.A

 

So I finally got around to getting this verified and the results are that it's a legit coin. Not sure how relevant this now is that the original pics no longer exist on the thread, but if need be I can take some more for future reference.

Firstly, to Bearmetal and Redback, I owe a great deal of gratitude for taking time out of their own personal life to look into the validity of this item.

And also to the staff members of Imperial Bullion at Chermside shopping Centre who took their time to test the coin for me without a moments hesitation.

So after more than a year of sitting beside my bedside table I can finally lock this away as one less (minor) stress in my life to worry about.

Again, a very big thanks to BearMetal, Redback and Imperial Bullion Chermside for going above and beyond for someone relatively new to this whole shebang.

Thanks guys.

 

Wow, so how did the original test get it wrong?

 

Can you please give a bit more detail regarding this. Good to hear the coin is legit btw. (though i hope the coin wasn't damaged in the process)

But why did the first test say it was fake? How was it first tested? This is an issue if it gives false negative and should be noted not to be relied on. This is just as problematic as the people creating fake coins, as telling someone their legit coin is fake is just as bad as them having a fake coin.

Also could you please relink the photos of the coins.

 

he shows the result of second test in picture attached @leo25 . XRF

The first test with a precious metals verifier (sigma)?

 

Is it standard that all bullion dealers have XRF these days? Wish i had one.

 

So the original test was performed on a different type of testing machine. One where you enter what the expected karat is and a bar moves to verify if correct. While the second was performed at the bullion dealers (pic above) on their "gun shaped" XRF machine which is apparently the Rolls Royce of testing. Their machine shows the additional information as photographed above. The coin also needed to be removed from the plastic packaging to return the result. With the packaging intact, the coin was coming back with 99.50 (thereabouts) The guy thought that strange as normally plastic has never been an issue. I wondered if it was perhaps that these coins are so thin that they go though and pick up on foreign material? Obviously you can see by by response that I'm not completely familiar with the techniques behind everything involved.

The original coin photo's no longer exist as they were lost when the website was moved and I've since deleted them from my phone. I will take some more photo's to upload for people's reference if that's what people want.

As for why it tested okay on one and not another machine, to that I have no answer. When I asked the imperil Bullion guys he mentioned something along the lines of minor anomalies, whatever that may mean.

 

Because the Sigma PMV is a $1000 piece of equipment and the xrf is an $18k piece of equipment

 

So the point to be taken is don't waste your money on a Sigma or similar Precious Metal Verifier device. Instead use that money to buy more metal.

I'm a strong believer that with coins no device is needed to ensure its integrity. weight, dimension and most important visually referencing the coin to a high quality image on a trusted site like Apmex is like 99.99% accurate. e.g panda photo front and back

I did this with my 1984 1/4 oz gold panda. front and back (lovely coin btw) It's close to impossible to replicate the same stamping and if you have a good eye you can easily see the small differences.

Though older coins sized 1/10 oz and smaller can be harder to tell as details become muddy due to less advance striking methods. Compare that to the new 1g gold maples which have amazing detail for something that small.

 

Leo, with regards to your methods this wouldn't appear to be accurate. I'm not sure if BM wants to get involved in this again but he used all those factors you mention and the coin was still out ( though only marginally) using his verified reference material and calipers.

Also, as BM stated, he verified a lot of material that I'd purchased through this website from other members and everything else returned positive results. If it had been one of the other items that were out rather than a 1/20th panda then the machine would have just paid for itself.

I'm glad I don't collect coins as such. I only have a few of these, more as novelties. Give me a fat blob of the good stuff over a coin any day.

Anyway, if anyone wants me to upload images for reference just let me know as once the coin is locked away I don't plan on revisiting it again anytime soon.

Cheers

 

yes please put them up if you can. Always good to have different references.

 

I think the issue with pmv was due to small size of item