1751 Moscow rouble

[RW Julian]

The following ICG slabbed 1751 Moscow rouble is on eBay at the present time:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280621464969

 

Yesterday I sent an e-mail to the seller, indicating that the piece was almost

certainly a Chinese counterfeit but, as the photos are not the best, I asked

for a better illustration of the obverse to be certain. He replied as follows:

 

HI, If You like this coin, you can buy, and do investigation. Thanks.

 

$899 for a likely counterfeit seems about $900 too high. The seller says to

“bid with confidence.” His answer to me says otherwise.

[nicholasz219]

So, you didn't buy it I see.

 

It's too bad there isn't a better solution than just informing the seller. I mean, I understand there is a fine line. If there is too loose of a standard for accusing someone of selling a counterfeit, then business grinds to a halt because every buyer with a grudge can make an accusation and stop the selling process. But in this case, where it is pretty obvious that the person is being evasive for a reason, it would be nice to have some way of stopping someone from making a $900 mistake.

[RW Julian]

So, you didn't buy it I see.

 

It's too bad there isn't a better solution than just informing the seller. I mean, I understand there is a fine line. If there is too loose of a standard for accusing someone of selling a counterfeit, then business grinds to a halt because every buyer with a grudge can make an accusation and stop the selling process. But in this case, where it is pretty obvious that the person is being evasive for a reason, it would be nice to have some way of stopping someone from making a $900 mistake.

Actually there is more to this. He tried to sell the same piece in October but with a much better

photograph and it is definitely a fake, not probably. (I had forgotten about the earlier posting to

this forum.) This is definitely a Chinese-made counterfeit and I told the seller this in October.

 

The person who sent the fake to ICG was presumably banking on the grading service not spotting

it as a fake.

 

There was another case this past week. A seller had a fake listed on eBay and I notified him of

the fact. He asked for proof (a reasonable response), I furnished it, and the piece was withdrawn

from sale. In this second case the seller acted properly.

[bobh]

I think that one needs to be even more vigilant in detecting and exposing counterfeits in today's market than around 4-5 years ago -- especially with regard to Russian coins. Although the Chinese have been faking things like USA trade dollars for a long time, I think it was just a few years ago that they started to produce these masses of fake Russian coins, selling them usually on eBay.

 

The customers of those fakes were either unsuspecting newbies who should have done their homework first, or unscrupulous dealers who knowingly bought them as fakes with the intent to sell them again as genuine. Now we see even respectable dealers who buy collections containing some of these coins and get stuck with them, and they even make their way into slabs. And sometimes the slabs themselves are also fake!

 

Then there were the waves of "replica" coins which showed a stamp in the eBay auction pictures but were in fact delivered without such a stamp. It has long been my guess that they photoshopped the "replica" into the pictures.

 

In the past, it was easy -- you saw that the same dealers from China, plus a few black sheep from the West or sometimes from White Russia, Poland or the Ukraine, were offering these, and immediately you knew enough to stay away. It isn't that simple anymore (and the fakes have gotten a lot better, too).

[grivna1726]

I think that one needs to be even more vigilant in detecting and exposing counterfeits in today's market than around 4-5 years ago -- especially with regard to Russian coins. Although the Chinese have been faking things like USA trade dollars for a long time, I think it was just a few years ago that they started to produce these masses of fake Russian coins, selling them usually on eBay.

 

I don't collect or follow Chinese coins although I understand that they are "hot" right now.

 

If they are not currently being aggressively counterfeited, then I will be surprised if they are not in the near future.

 

Interestingly, I heard recently that a car manufacturer that produces high end vehicles (not sure which one - maybe Mercedes?) had been expecting a very poor year for sales, given the general economic conditions in the Western world.

 

Sales in China were also expected to weaken due to punitive new taxes imposed by the Chinese government which inflated prices from very high to prohibitive levels for all but the most wealthy.

 

The company was surprised to find that it actually had a good year. The reason? Chinese sales took off, contrary to what one might expect to occur. Apparently the extremely high cost resulting from the various taxes imposed made the car even more attractive as a status symbol in China.

 

Perhaps this attitude is (or will be) also a factor for rare Chinese coins?