Scam ? eBay seller in France, high-$ coins
dcarr
Posts: 8,629 ✭✭✭✭✭
Looks like this seller in France is taking Heritage pictures and "photo-shopping" them with sharpening onto their wood desktop scene and selling on eBay.
1860 Clark Gruber $10
eBay listing: https://ebay.com/itm/183129880575
Heritage listing : https://coins.ha.com/itm/territorial-gold/territorial-and-fractional-gold/1860-10-clark-gruber-andamp-co-ten-dollar-k-3-r5-ms62-ngc/a/1254-4390.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515
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If that was a legitimate eBay sale, an owner lost $48,500. I doubt it.
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1893-S Morgan $1
eBay listing: https://ebay.com/itm/183139580551
Heritage listing: https://coins.ha.com/itm/morgan-dollars/silver-and-related-dollars/1893-s-1-ms62-ngc/a/1169-5182.s?ic4=ListView-Thumbnail-071515
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Comments
I think he is a scammer. He had a few really nice raw coins awhile back, and for some reason the pictures looked photoshopped to me. Looked like trueview style pics edited to look like they were in flips. I emailed him asking for a closer up picture, and I was blocked. Plus the coins were all relisted and sold again. I'm not sure what is going on with him though, as there is no negative feedback yet.
Stay away....far away.... just read the description.... more red flags than a military parade in Moscow....Cheers, RickO
Says his Paypal account stolen, message for other ways to pay.
RUN FOREST RUN
bob
reported
Wow, the PayPal thing is a huge red flag here...yikes. I mean, unless you saw the 2017 auction closing photos it's otherwise kind of believable. Shoot, he even got some of that wood grain to peak through around the coins/prongs inner circle. Shadowed, but you can see it. If the auction was still going I'd be tempted to look at his 2014 invoices.
Not too terribly long ago I bid on a coin doing pretty much the same thing. It was much cheaper and cool enough that it would have been a nice addition. It was a calculated risk though, and figured buyer protection would be my ace in the hole. Not surprisingly, it was a scam. I got my money back...but I strictly followed the ebay/paypal requirements. Wouldn't touch THIS auction with a 10 foot pole.
Pass.
From the Ebay listing:
Year: 1860
Mint Location: Philadelphia
Grade: MS 62
Composition: Gold
Certification: NGC
Strike Type: Business
I learned something new, Clark and Gruber struck their coins in Philadelphia.
The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
Coins in Movies
Coins on Television
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i'm not saying this seller is in possession of the listed items but those images look legitimate to me. natural light creating the shadow and the reverse images rotated for orientation. all with a consistent look from natural light imagry. i see how they do look possibly photoshopped. i wondered if it were a scanner at first with a non-white background but after 50k images, i gotta go with a window and natural light, probably not sunny out.
anyone contact to ask for proof of the invoice mentioned? - i usually don't ask for things like this any more due to time constraints but in this case?
fairly random but not condemning items listed. like the tootsie pop; the world may never know. :P
just my 2c.
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I see he has had lots of other names in the past. I have never seen that before that might be a good way to see if the seller is honest. Why would you change your name?
seheiah ...............................................Oct-02-17 ................Present
saintseiyalin ........................................Jun-14-17...................Oct-02-17
aior74....................................................Jan-18-17...................Jun-14-17
lion6774 ...............................................Mar-15-16..................Jan-18-17
collectionneurtimbmonor ................Oct-21-14...................Mar-15-16
a******u..............................................Oct-21-14...................Oct-21-14
https://contact.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ReturnUserIdHistory&requested=seheiah
On the $10 gruber, the picture on a brown woodgrain table, shows the woodgrain under edge of slab and under coin in middle. best photoshop I have ever seen, shadows even good.
Yep!
Look at the reverse labels. Colors look off from Heritage auction.
Only problem I have with it being photoshop is the heritage photo cuts off edges of the slab where sellers pics don't
My Ebay Store
It sold for about 5% of the Heritage price. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm , really?
bob
I think he photoshopped the coin and label over. Guys, look at the spacial difference between the coin and white insert of each coin.
Tabs that hold the coin really appear to be different sizes.
Yeah this guy is a scammer. He was trying to sell a fake NGC slabbed 1796 no stars quarter eagle a while ago.
Successful transactions with: wondercoin, Tetromibi, PerryHall, PlatinumDuck, JohnMaben/Pegasus Coin & Jewelry, CoinFlip, and coinlieutenant.
I think that seller photographed a genuine NGC slab on their wood background.
Then they photo-shopped the inserts (but not the slab edges) from the Heritage pictures and pasted them over their own slab picture.
i'm not saying i agree but i concede that people do go to these lengths to raise funds.
good thinking.
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Compared his latest listing image with the NGC one:
One of the things I noticed while comparing the images of the 1860 Clark Gruber $10 is the difference between coin prongs (I apologize about the terminology I'm not sure what they're called) holding up the coin. The coin prongs in the sellers photo are much thicker or wider compared to the Heritage photo. So it seems that the seller did a masterful job of copying an image of the Heritage coin onto another slab with different sized prongs. Just my observation.
You can easily see the prongs from the real holder are nothing like the prongs from the fake holder:
He/she listed this 1929 $5 Indian Head with the current bid at $375
Yup, and that one is a fake. Odd for a scammer to use a picture of a fake coin if he is photoshoping.
The 1860 Gruber is absolutely a Photoshop job of the Heritage coin and label. It was copy and pasted over an actual image of an NGC holder against a wood grain table.
The main light source on the coin is at the 12 o'clock position, while the main light source of the holder on the table is at 3 o'clock.
The white balance of the label did not change when they copy and pasted from the Heritage image. The Heritage image used a much warmer white balance compared to the NGC slab on the table. I you were to crop away just the label from the eBay image, you would notice it matches the Heritage white balance. This is the reason it "looks" so weird.
Here is the eBay image with the Heritage label copy and pasted in to show the white balance issue. I left a bit of the holder frame in so you can see the color of it around the label for comparison.
Hi Justin, you are very good on your craft! Thank you for your illustration work.