Forums For Fake Coins

HiBucky

Back to fake coins just for a second. .. PCGS, ANACS, ANA, NGCS need to have a forum to identify the sellers and identify the coins.... Done .. PCGS please start a forum...

Sapyx

There is a one-word reason why companies are always reluctant to publicly name and shame counterfeiters and counterfeit-sellers:

Lawsuits.

I assure you, most of these groups (and other groups such as coin forums) already have in-house discussion forums and lists of fake-makers and fake-sellers and pages of examples of fake coins, fake slabs, etc. They can't "go public" with these lists because they're not prepared to waste the time and money on the inevitable court cases such action would take. Because not all counterfeiters meekly accept being publicly labelled as criminal scum.

There are a few bold organizations prepared to publicly name and shame, and to put their money where their mouth is in the face of the lawsuits. But their scope is usually quite limited.

Example: FORVM Ancient Coins is an online coin dealership specializing in ancient coins. They maintain and publish on their open forum a list of "notorious fake sellers"; the list is restricted to eBay sellers and restricted to fake ancient coins only. They also maintain an image database of proven-to-be-fake ancient coins. But to get a name added to the "notorious fake seller" list, an internal debate happens on FORVM's forum; only if everyone agrees the coins are fake and the fake-seller knows they are fake and doesn't care, does the seller's name get added to the list. If they don't agree, then the name is not added and the discussion about that name gets deleted.

Maintaining a database of images of fake coins is also a two-edged sword, because the counterfeiters themselves can study such databases and use the discussion about the fake coins as information to help them improve the quality of their next generation of counterfeits. We don't really want to become a university to train counterfeiters in making better counterfeits.

HiBucky

Sapyx :

Great points