Chip in a box...

burfle23

Anyone seen this? Phone on the outside of the sealed box:

MWallace

Wow!! Not good. Try wrapping the slab in foil and see if it'll still read it.

Jzyskowski1

Thank you.
I really appreciate your time and help. Amazing. Please continue providing us with the fruits of your research. 👍🏼

gumby1234

There was mention of this in another recent thread. Its scary mailing coins these days.

PerryHall

@MWallace said:
Wow!! Not good. Try wrapping the slab in foil and see if it'll still read it.

Great idea. Assuming it works, it would be cheap insurance to wrap a slab in foil to prevent thieves from using their phone to see what's inside the box.

MWallace

@PerryHall said:

@MWallace said:
Wow!! Not good. Try wrapping the slab in foil and see if it'll still read it.

Great idea. Assuming it works, it would be cheap insurance to wrap a slab in foil to prevent thieves from using their phone to see what's inside the box.

When I worked retail many moons ago, we had security tags on all of our items. At some point I learned that if foil was wrapped around the tag, the alarm wouldn't go off if someone walked out of the door with it. It may just work here too.

ricko

Extra thick aluminum foil, or a few layers of standard foil, will block RFID transmission. You can wrap your card or put the layers in your wallet/carrier.... both sides recommended. Cheers, RickO

mr1931S

I wonder now if that's how the coin I was to receive got swiped while in custody of USPS. It's been a big mystery because neither I nor the sender could figure out WHY a Priority box like the one seen in the OP would be opened and its contents stolen. It was worth it to the thief, that's why. Very interesting.

1630Boston

lilolme

Here is one of the previous threads if anyone wants to review other comments, experiences, recommendations on the subject.

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/13406920#Comment_13406920

bsshog40

I'm curious, did you have to open either the pcgs app or webpage in order to get this info on your phone? A special app to read this? If a coin gets stolen using this method, my thoughts would be that a thief could be narrowed down to a shipper employee. I also wonder if the usps is aware of this process and if their scanners are able to verify contents at each postal location? Just off the wall thoughts.

lilolme

@bsshog40 said:
I'm curious, did you have to open either the pcgs app or webpage in order to get this info on your phone? A special app to read this?

On my phone, an Android and a newer one, I need to have the NFT or contactless payments turned on. Then it will detect the pcgs NFC. Then if I want to view it I need to have a connection to the internet either by WiFi or Mobile/phone data. I often turn both of those off. If off, it will ask me how to view and I will need to turn one on. Then it will go to the internet and show the pcgs page.

There is also a pcgs App (Cert verification I believe) that can be used if the phone does not have the NFT or contactless payment function in it.

Edit - Since I don't see it mentioned here I will add that the slab needs to be Gen6.1 (S) that has the NFC chip. Dark shield on reverse label and has a similar shield on the obverse plastic in the lower left corner.

https://www.pcgs.com/holdermuseum
.

bsshog40

It seems to me that an outside thief would have to go to some extremes to read one of these chips, let alone steal the item and reseal the package. Maybe a postal employee could get away with this but still seems to me that they would have to have some good knowledge of this process to accomplish the theft.

JBK

It's a great niche market for a thief. No more stealing blind and ending up with clothes or books or miscellaneous stuff.

Coin Finder

Wow! Never thought of that but it makes sense. I’m going to experiment now!! Thanks for posting

BuffaloIronTail

@bsshog40 said:
It seems to me that an outside thief would have to go to some extremes to read one of these chips, let alone steal the item and reseal the package. Maybe a postal employee could get away with this but still seems to me that they would have to have some good knowledge of this process to accomplish the theft.

Unfortunately, now that the discussion about this appears here, it's like a "shout out" to nefarious individuals on how to do it.

Pete

asheland

When my Indian Cents came back from Rick Snow, before opening the package, I tested it and it showed my 1877 in there!

bsshog40

@BuffaloIronTail said:

Unfortunately, now that the discussion about this appears here, it's like a "shout out" to nefarious individuals on how to do it.

Pete

It's kind of a darned if you do and darned if you don’t. Good for both parties I guess.

NumisOxide

Not good at all.

burfle23

@BuffaloIronTail said:

@bsshog40 said:
It seems to me that an outside thief would have to go to some extremes to read one of these chips, let alone steal the item and reseal the package. Maybe a postal employee could get away with this but still seems to me that they would have to have some good knowledge of this process to accomplish the theft.

Unfortunately, now that the discussion about this appears here, it's like a "shout out" to nefarious individuals on how to do it.

Pete

Or a shout out to those who can fix it to do so; always the messenger...

lilolme

First other phone readers might work differently, better or worse, than mine.

I can detect the chip from about 2 inches away. The reader appears to be in the bottom of my phone so the top of the slab needs to be within about 2 inches of the bottom side/half of my phone to detect the NFC.

Then I put the slab in a PCGS plastic 20 coin box (typical pcgs box) and put the lid on. It became more difficult to detect the chip. Even knowing where in the box the slab was, sometimes when moving the bottom of the phone over the top of the box where the slab and chip are it would miss the detection. Would then need to try again but could detect it inside the pcgs box but again needed to move the phone directly over the top of the pcgs box where the slab was/is located.

Tried putting the slab in upside down (the NFC at the bottom of the pcgs box) with the lid off and trying to detect the NFC from the top (no lid). Could not detect the NFC. It is to far away to detect using my phone unless I turn the phone and then slide it down into the pcgs box and then move it next to the slab. Or move the phone over the bottom of the pcgs box but the point here was that I would need to search the top and bottom of the box without knowing where the NFC was located.

Again other phones might have a stronger reader than mine.

Without any inside information on who the 'shipper' or 'receiver' is/are, then I also wonder how many random boxes would need to be surface scanned before getting a positive 'hit'. That is what % of boxes test 'positive' for 'coin' ('coin' being a NFC slab and not any others). This will certainly vary for some local locations that have a heavy coin industry of some type and where many are shipped to or from, but once into the bulk stations and beyond it would smear out.

One last time other phones readers might be different than mine.

It would be interesting to know if others can detect from a foot away or similar. Do Not say what type of phone though.

Another thought - from other threads where the NFC was not working it appeared that when notified that pcgs could then turn it on or activate. I wonder if there could be developed a method to turn the NFC on and off for shipping and such. This of course would need to be done or be an additional service through pcgs or its supplier.