We had this discussion about copy coins in Russian coin forums, and I wanted to expand it over here too So, would you buy a copy of a very rare coin which you otherwise never could afford?
My policy is that if some coin is too expensive for me, then be it. A copy, no matter how good, won't be the same, atleast not for me. I think they are nice and collectable objects, but they have no numismatic value and they shouln't be included in a coin collection.

I don't have restrictions on purchasing copies. If I like a copy and feel that I'd enjoy having it for use as a pocket piece, part of a display, to sit on my desk and admire, because it gives great detail of a beautiful design, whatever, I go ahead and get one.

I have only two copies right now. A fugio cent and a 1793 Chain Cent. I'm planning to get a few more.

Copies, by the way, are great for bringing "rare" or unusual coins to school to pass around for the students to see. Much better than say a $3500 coin.

Some Novodel copies I wish I had...

There's a couple of medals I would consider. They were originally only struck in quantities of 10 or less so the chances of my ever seeing one, much less affording it, are pretty slim.

I have restrikes but no copies
I might buy a copy if it was not a mini but the same size ,weight and material
as the original

I don't think I'd ever buy a copy.

Well many dealers have told me that the main focus of my collection is indeed a 'specialist' area in it's own right. As such getting coins for this set is very tricky.

The dealers that do sell the coins i require on the internet are usually not very evident and thus it takes some patient scouring through listings on search engines (using a whole variety of spellings and rewording). Unfortunately the vast majority of those listings are either archaeological excavation/museum reports or copies of the coins for sale.

So i'm getting pretty fed up of seeing copies here there and everywhere, but none of the real ones!


Answering the question therefore the answer is a resounding no, no and double no. I'm into coins for the history, for the places they been, the events they've witnessed and the hands they've been in. Not for the looks of the coin so much. When i see a copy, even if it's a faithful reproduction in the faithful .925 silver alloy, all i'm seeing is something that was minted in 19XX and not in 9XX.

So nope i wouldn't.

Do me a favor and read this answer in 9 months and see if you feel as strongly that you'd never buy a copy.

I'd rather have a gap, gaps are good, i like gaps... means i've got something to fill. When i complete a set i get bored with it very quickly. I've come to the conclusion i don't actually like finishing sets. That's why i make it as hard as possible to actually complete them.

I have bought copies in the past, but I would never do so again.

When I was newer in the hobby, I bought everything that struck my fancy and I accepted what was offered on the terms of the dealer. As I learned more, I felt more confident about adhering to my own standards. I have in the past written about the Gallery Mint Museum. I understand what they do and I generally support their work in restoring lost arts and making facsimiles.

A facsmile is not a replica or a copy.

For instance, GMM created a Buffalo Nickel in the Roman style. They created a Mercury Dime in the Roman style. They did these for the ANA Young Numismatists as a fund raiser, so the reverses say that or display symbols supporting that. So, there is no confusion as to what this object is.

On the other hand, we know of instances where crooks have taken GMM replicas (copies), removed the word COPY, artificially aged the coin and attempted to pass it. We know of the failed attempt. We do not know of the successful scams.

How do you differentiate an "honest" replica from a dishonest one? I know that since 1972 in the USA we have had the Hobby Protect Act and the required incuse COPY, but that technicality aside, how is any replica, not a fake? Is a 1916-D Mercury Dime with an added mintmark, just a "replica"?

When I spoke at the ANA Convention in Pittsburgh on "Fakes: threat or menace?" I passed around Chinese copies of Seated Dollars. Some people could not tell the difference even after holding them. So, the old collector goes to the big bourse in the sky and his heirs sell off the collection. If you were the dealer flipping through a couple big boxes of this and that, the Whitman folders, a 100 or 1000 or so flips and 2x2s, and you saw a Seated Dollar, would you take it out or would you just tally it for what it appeared to be?

Fakes are bad for business, bad for everybody, bad all the way around.

So, OK, you cannot afford an 1804 Dollar, so you buy a replica. What do you have? In the movie POPEYE with Robin Williams, Popeye had a "picture" of his Dad: a frame around a rectangle of cardboard on which was written the words ME PAPPA. That is what you have with a replica. You might has well write the words 1804 DOLLAR on a circle of paper.

And again, I used to buy replicas for the same reasons given here. I understand. I do not condemn the people, even though I decline the practice.

This is pretty much my stance on the topic too.


I did also consider the case for replicas being passed off at the genuine article although i did not mention it on here. One example i can think of comes to mind almost immediately whenever anyone mentions replicas is the following.

At the Jorvik Viking centre in York, England (which is basically a museum of sorts) they issue replicas of Viking coinage. The one's i've seen are examples that have a die muling from two completely different issues, so as to make it clear to collectors that these coins are not real Viking pieces. The reverse features the hammer of Thor as you would find on Viking coinage of the period, the obverse is a copy of the obverse of a contemporary Saxon penny of King Æthelstan (who was based in the south). Now no collector would would be fooled as such.

However several specimens have already turned up on ebay being sold as either genuine Anglo-Saxon issue coins of the kingdom of Wessex, or genuine coinage from the Viking Kingdom of York. More adventurous individuals have even promoted the coin as a rare 'error', having he bizarre obverse/reverse match.

As far as i can tell the coins don't say copy on them as UK law (as far as i am aware) does not require the word COPY to be put on the coins. I think they require An 'R' for replica (or something similar)... although this i'm not entirely sure about.

Just clicked the "Have already bought" button - usually, however, I don't buy copies :-) The one exception was the famous Reformation coin issued by Saxony in 1917. A beautiful design in my opinion, but that thing costs between 50,000 and maybe 80,000 euro ... Since I know that (unless some miracle happens) I will never own such a coin, I once bought a cheap copy, €20 or so.

I also have a few other copies - those, however, have a special meaning by themselves. For example, the city of Lübeck sold copies of its very first "Mark" coin, dated 1502, shortly before the "modern Mark" was replaced by the euro cash in 2002. Of course it is a copy, but in this case I did not buy it because I cannot afford the original but because I wanted to have that souvenir.

Christian

I would not want a copy of any coin. It would take the fun out of collecting the coin to me. Come on you guys and gals know what it feels like to have the real coin in hand and it belongs to you? There has to be something lost there in having just a copy of a coin.

I have yet to see a copy that I would be interested in buying. They don't have any place in any of my collections and they just don't excite me.

I would rather have authentic coins and it is a concern when a newbie like me doesn't know enough about distinguishing features to know the difference between copy, fake and real. I like to think I would be able to tell from what I have seen and read but the reality is I could be fooled. (did I SAY THAT?)

I guess it come down to the point when you know that it is a copy coin and you know what you are buying and at what "reasonable" price. I'm sure if a genuine coin is worth in terms of 10,000US+, you need a lot of securities at home or at a bank to store it.

Of course, if I bought a coin, thinking that it's a genuine one and paid full price for it, I would honestly be angry.

I said no. I think it takes the fun out of collecting.

now slightly unrelated but, this is something very funny, if not odd.

From this url link: http://news.monstersandcritics.com/mediamo...ioned_in_Moscow

"This is a counterfeit five-kopeck coin minted in late 18th century, made in Sweden. It was minted by the Swedish court for its soldiers on the eve of a war with Russia. The belligerent plans failed and copper coins circulated between Moscow and Siberia for a long time and now cost twenty times more than the authentic coins. The starting price is 4,500 dollars. Coin collectors say that its criminal background is not a reason to write it off."

Now what do you think? 4,500USD for a fake Swedish copper coin that shouldn't cost more than 50USD is way too much and ridicious if a genuine Russian one doesn't cost any more than 50-100USD?

The counterfeits like that are naturally differend case. They were ment to circulate as the normal, original coins. The modern copies are only made to fool collectors!

I have one fake coin in my collection, a Rouble of 1912, made of tin propably during the WWI. It did (most propably) serve as money, and so it has "right" to be in my album.

Wait, did you know that, that Swedish 5 kopeks coins are counterfeit coins obviously by the Swedish, as they were profitting out from the copper pricing scam. (lol)

Obviously, a lot of them got remelted because they are counterfeits, afterall like the majority of the votes that responded to the forum so far: "NO to counterfeits"

But imagine if you are born in that era, your first response to such would be: "why should we keep a counterfeit copy coin?!?!?!?!"

How much more different can this be, to what we are discussing?

Yes I did know. They were minted in Avesta during a horrible war which the swedes screw up completely.

To me words "copy" and "counterfeit" have differend meanings.
Copy is something modern only made for collectors, counterfeit is something which was ment to fool the shopkeepers

So, i say no to "copies", but partial yes for "counterfeits".

In the auto club magazine that I got today there was a fine example of a copy that I would not buy ;-)

Some company sells a "restrike" of the 1933 Double Eagle - and that thing, Ø 34 mm, costs only €10. They even emphasize that the original was auctioned at $7.59 million ...

That thing, however, is "24 ct fully gold plated" which probably means it is some base metal piece with an ultra-thin layer of gold. Oh, and the order limit is only 5 per household. Does anybody want my five pieces?

Christian

Historically copies have had a long standing in American numismatics, especially among collectors of early copper. In the mid nineteenth century when photography was not very commonplace it was not at all unusual for the owner of a very rare variety to have eletrotypes made for his fellow collectors. It would both provide a "hole filler" until such time as a genuine specimen could be had, or for those were another would 'never' be available, and it would also provide an example that could be used to help identify another specimen. If you discovered a new variety or possible new variety you could send an electro of it off to an expert for confirmation. These contemporary electrotypes are collectible in their own right now and can bring a decent price at auction.

I would be interested in Chinese (1890's-1920's) coins, but because of that I haven't bought any yet. I need to study more about them first.

Actually known counterfeits were sometimes accepted by people. For example, in Rome during its later empire days, when small change were rare, crudely made obvious counterfeits were accepted into daily trade.

I can think of buying copies. This because you then get the feeling how they appear, so you do not make otherwise costly misstakes.

Contemporary counterfeit, yes. Moderns- yes, if it something I need for a type set, and the quality is reasonably good, otherwise no.

I believe that coin copies are the numismatic equivalent of devil worship. It doesn't matter what kind of copy, whether ancient counterfeit (fouree), ancient imitation, modern replica, old modern forgery, new modern forgery, whatever, they're all exactly the same. Exactly. They're pure evil, and anyone who even thinks about collecting them should be reported to the International Bureau of Numismatic Standards and Puritanism, which has as its U.N.-chartered purpose the promulgation of what's collectable and what's not. Copies are not collectable, neither are they collectible, and above all else nobody here should ever write that they're collectuble.

Could you explain that? A search for "International Bureau of Numismatic Standards and Puritanism" turns up nothing.

One of us got it.

Two.

lol. Make that three

Sometimes... black and white details on cheap catalogue books just don't do don't the right job...

I have only one restrike that is not a legal coin: a 1990 Estonian 1 krone that I purchased that same year. It greatly interested me as the Soviet Union was still around and Estonia had not yet regained its independence. I thought it was a bold gesture by the Estonians.


Other than that I have only one copy, and that is of a Russian coin that was in a bag of other coins that was given me. It is a poor cast copy with the word "COPY" stamped in it.

I do not ever intend on buying any copies. I do not care for them. I want either the real thing or than I will settle for syzygy's method. (scroll down)