Silverjoe said:
Well at least they are now being honest about cheating their customers out of silver. I recently bought five 2015 pandas and as you all know, they didn't print any weight or AG purity on the 2015's.. The five I bought, I think only one weighed in at exactly 31.1 grams. The rest were between 30.8 and 31.0 grams... And based on other comments and things I have read about the 2015's, this in not uncommon.. Never will buy pandas again. Which is a shame cause I really like the coins otherwise.. Pandas demand high premiums anyways so I don't really understand the reason behind this. Why try to cheat your customers with the 2015's and then just stray from the worldwide standard on the 2016's? I don't think it will last long and they will eventually go back to the standard when sales start declining.... I know this is going to be a big turnoff with a lot of stackers???
Well with 2015 being a transitional year, the lack of weight would indicate that some of the presses might've been changed during mintage to the new weight. This would cause variation in the different versions of the same coin, which would make the right weight more sought after in time. All one needs to look at is the history of coins and the changes to find that in a few years someone will publish what exactly happened and how many there are of the "correct" version and those will command a premium and be considered more "valuable".
dccpa said:
The counterfeiting is what is really hurting the Pandas. The Chinese government not only does not take any action to stop the counterfeiters but makes it easier for them to counterfeit the coins. Why should a potential buyer trust coins supposedly minted by the Chinese government?
Counterfeiters in china are sentenced to Death or Life in Prison. The difference is, in china, life is not considered "that" valuable to a country of 1.4 billion. That being said, I suppose you trust the U.S. government with minting our money and the Fed for regulating supply, so why stack metals to begin with.
Every country has its problems. China obviously has counterfeit issues, but to think the U.S. or any other country for that matter is not corrupt and fully trust worthy is a little ignorant and bias. I know you are a smart dude, but I see too many people hate on China when the U.S. has the very same problems and in some cases significantly worse, look at the 2008 crisis and 2001 bubble, banks were rescued while its citizens were left in debt. To its benefit, in a socialist nation, the greater good is the goal. Here in the States, corps have the rights of a citizen and more power and influence to lead the country. In China, the country leads the business. Sucks both ways.. lol..
Personally, I will buy the Panda's. Because I think the China gov't wants its people to start keeping more gold, hence more denominations. If the China market grows with PCGS and NGC's growing presense there, a mintage of 8 million to 1.4 billion population is tiny. Not like a mintage of 45 million ASE's for a population of 300m per year. I'm considering China as a growing consumer market and speculating that they will be interested in coins with their middle class as big as the entire population of the US, even though their market is slowing, they are still growing. Americans love ASE's, I think Chinese love Pandas and will eventually mint as many as ASE's for local market since that's how they are making their move towards. So many US folks are upset they swapped out of the ozt even though the world uses metric. Ultimately, I think China wants to show some strength in influence and see who will follow.
