60 Minutes last night China Fakes guess we are lucky!

ScarsdaleCoin

Caught Sixty Minutes last night....they went on about how 20% of the items (sneakers, clothes, golfclubs) sold in the US is actually a fake....or as they put it "IDENTICAL COPY"....guess that makes us in the coin market lucky....could you even think about 20% of all the coins being sold being a fake....yikes....any guess what the percentage is for coins....I would guess 1-2% fake/copy.....

jbsteven

<< <i>any guess what the percentage is for coins....I would guess 1-2% fake/copy..... >>



I believe the number to be much lower than this.

K6AZ

I don't know what they are faking now, but back in the 90s when I lived in CA there was a huge market in fake Levi's, most being sold at flea markets and swap meets. I remember on one occasion the Oceanside CA police confiscating over 3000 pairs of fake Levi's at the Oceanside Drive In swapmeet.

mrearlygold

Hey better then that, banks in Asia automatically assume that 10% of the currency that floats in is fake.

True.

Rgrds
Tom

earlwbollinger

Well the Secret Service suspects a country over there (not China) of making the best counterfeit currency so far.
Even the serial numbers are different on each bill.
You have to use a jeweller's loupe to look close enough to spot the differences.

Fortunately, no one over there has started using a big press to make coins using high quality dies yet.
Or we'd be in real trouble trying to spot the fake ones.

satootoko

<< <i>Fortunately, no one over there has started using a big press to make coins using high quality dies yet.
Or we'd be in real trouble trying to spot the fake ones. >>

As a matter of fact the number of "replica" and "tourist souvenier" coins coming out of China is huge. Between 25% and 40% of the Japanese and Chinese 19th/early 20th Century silver dollar size coins offered on eBay never saw the inside of the official mint, and a large percentage of the sellers think they have genuine stuff.

Steve27

"could you even think about 20% of all the coins being sold being a fake" until the recent crack-down, it was 90% of all raw Trade Dollars sold on eBay.

Bikingnut

I saw that myself. The Calloway part was interesting. They specifically mentioned people buying sets of fake Calloways for $275 then selling them on ebay for $1500. Buyers don't know they're fake until they send a broken one to Calloway to be replaced. The way to tell is with a magnet. If a magnet sticks to the head of a Calloway driver, it's fake.

100proof1957

Funny thing about golf clubs is,many of the fakes come from the same plant as the real ones !
at least the Heads anyway !

earlwbollinger

I saw that myself. The Calloway part was interesting. They specifically mentioned people buying sets of fake Calloways for $275 then selling them on ebay for $1500. Buyers don't know they're fake until they send a broken one to Calloway to be replaced. The way to tell is with a magnet. If a magnet sticks to the head of a Calloway driver, it's fake.

Funny thing about golf clubs is,many of the fakes come from the same plant as the real ones !

Looks like I won't be buying any clubs off of Ebay now.

If the factory is making "fake" stuff after hours or even skimming off the top with the rejects and stuff;
it makes you wonder what is official or not?
Maybe that sale at the store isn't what it's cracked up to be?
I remember someone buying some cheap brand name pants with holagram labels and all, turned out they were rejects that were supposed to have been destroyed or recycled.

I haven't seen high quality die pressed fake coins out of China yet myself, but they have a huge cottage industry making cast or electrotype coins though. I think the big factory presses are too busy making other goods for anyone to use for a while at night.
I do know that some people in Romania and Bulgaria were real big in making counterfeit or fake ancient and medieval gold and silver coins using presses, but these coins are much smaller than the big silver dollar size coins. Then we had some people in Lebanon making lots of small gold coins for a while. Some of these were pretty good too. Then there is some people in Peru making thousands if not millions of fake brass/copper sol coins. I guess if you can make a couple of dies your in business.

lordmarcovan

My Dad has some Chinese pirated records. They're somewhat easy to spot, though, because of the labels. One says "THE BET OF GILBERT & SULLIVAN". I didn't know Gilbert & Sullivan were gamblers!