Fake talers on eBay

worldcoinguy

I think we are all smart enough to avoid these, but I thought I would let people know to avoid the Augsburg talers on eBay from Chinese sellers. They look damn good, but I believe they are the same dies used on over 40+ auctions in late 2007 and early 2008, all from different sellers in China. Reported to eBay.

ebay auctions:
170308873430
320347937049
170309405058

Hussulo

Hmmm China again. They actually look well done and perhaps convincing but I don't collect Talers and haven't compared them to genuine ones.

Thanks for the heads up!

IloiloKano

Though it is hard to prove with such poor quality pictures, at least two of these listings provided a good enough image to find diagnostic marks. These two are certainly cast copies, as they have the same diagnostic marks from the original used to make the cast. To find the diagnostic marks, I first inverted the images to produce negatives, which make it easier to see what would otherwise be overlooked. Then I enhanced the contrast to make the marks more obvious.


The Chinese counterfeitors often bang the copies up a lot in order to disguise the marks and make each coin appear to be different, but if you can locate just one identical mark, then you know it was cast from an original that had that flaw. Since it is now known there is at least this one flaw in the original, others from the same cast can be more readily identified, as you now know where to look.

worldcoinguy

IloiloKano - many thanks for the comments. I did not catch the diagnotic marks, and never thought to invert the color. Brilliant.

I suppose it was a bit presumptuous of me to just assume they are fakes without hard evidence, but when a taler appears over 40 times from dozens of chinese sellers over a relatively very short period of time, I can put together the pieces. It has a great design, but I will probably never go near another Augsburg taler raw or in a dealers display case after seeing the volume of these pass through ebay. All it takes is a couple of people to think they bought the real thing, and mix them into an established collection....I find that to be the scariest aspect of it.

mudskippie

The first auction had one bid, oh that's going to hurt

worldcoinguy

Another auction of the same coin; different seller in China. Reported again to ebay (not that it matters much). There will probably be 6 more auctions for the same coin within 7 days by different Chinese sellers.

170310194808

IloiloKano

Same diagnostic mark on that coin...

vvaed

Thanks! I checked it out and found that the same coins keep coming up. I learned a couple of things. US and Canadian Coins also show up the same way. I found a 1797 US Dollar, a 1948 Canadian Dollar and half dollar, 1955 Double Die Cent, in addition to all the old foreign crowns. There is one seller who markets these things as "Replica" copies and his coins are so stamped. Opening Bid $0.10. I hope that some organization is buying one of each of these for comparison and certification purposes. The flaws from the original coin are key to identification as you point out. Check out seller: ji+n$ghu&as*h)ei. Remove my punctuation (used to foil search engines) and check him out. This guy is our friend. He is selling a lot of coins (all marked replica)because people do sometimes want to fill a hole. But I think of coins purchased by shadowy Americans who wait a while for the heat to cool, then sell these items as genuine after building a good reputation. Just because a seller is right here in the good ol' US of A, or any other nation for that manner, does not mean you are free of this scourge from China.

Best regards,
ed

HighRelief

You guys are good detectives, nice work!

worldcoinguy

Here is the 5th example of the same taler, different seller. The saga continues.

170310333335

IloiloKano

The last image is too small and highly JPG compressed. JPEG compression artifacts mask any diagnostic marks, but I would be wary.

worldcoinguy

Two more on Augsburg talers on ebay today, which makes 7 in a weeks time. I don't see the adjustment mark on the 1st auction - different cast perhaps? He also has quite a selected of other darkside crowns and 8 reales that are likely questionable in nature.

180336786156

180336234495