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.
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.
and STOP shorting them!