The "Goldsheet" popped up in my Gray Sheet Envelope today.
BillJones
Posts: 36,020 ✭✭✭✭✭
When I opened my Gray Sheet today I noted that the envelop was a little think. Since it was not time for the monthly and quarterly editions I was bit surprised. The addition was something called the "The CDN Monthly Goldsheet." It's a new price guide for the modern Chinese coin market. I guess this shows that the Chinese are now major players.
To be frank, I'm not thrilled with this, and it has nothing to do with racism or politics. I regret the way this country treated the Chinese in the 19th century. They were honest, hardworking, innovative people by in large, and the laws the U.S. Congress passed concerning them were despicable.
No, the thing that rankles me is that the Chinese Government has done nothing about the counterfeits their citizens continue to send this country, flooding our numismatic markets. I'm sick of them, and for that reason I won't have anything to do with any modern Chinese coin.
If the Chinese Government wants to be treated like a world class entity, and then they should crack down hard on the people who have been making and sending counterfeit coins to the United States.
Comments
I agree, not only coins but they import fakes from iPhones to medications. And from government run/supported factories no less.
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When I was in graduate business school, I did a study abroad in China in 2007. Intellectual property theft and the concern with fakes was consistently top 3 issue with every company we visited, from GM and Chase bank to Volkswagen, some haute couture labels, and even small shop publishers and wineries. Businesses in China, especially ones where there is a Chinese and foreign ownership component, has to be majority Chinese owned. Payoffs and other "incentives" are provided to local Chinese Communist Party officials for preferential tax arrangements or land considerations for factory placement, etc.
So it is tough to do even before you get to the IP/fakery issue. The government has to want to crack down in reality, not just in promises, in order to see some of this go away.
Gonna get me a $50 Octagonal someday. Some. Day.
I was just thinking about this yesterday as I browsed one of my favorite eBay searches. Nearly every page had at least one fake coin offering from China. The sad thing is they all had bids on them as well.
That is why I stopped collecting Chinese dollars in the last 18 months.
I don't support theives, cheats and oppressive governments and that is what China is all about. Don't get me started with Jack Ma (Alibsba CEO) and how he says he is against selling counterfeit items...
Here's an interesting and informative blog on the Chinese coin counterfeiting problem.
coinsblog.ws/2014/02/a-frank-discussion-about-china-and-counterfeits.html
Lance.
Snippet from above:
Under Chinese anti-counterfeiting laws, it is illegal to duplicate any legal tender coin or currency note for any reason. However, since coinage from previous regimes is no longer legal tender, it is legal strike coins with designs that are no longer legal tender. Chinese laws do not recognize the collection of these coins as a market to protect. Coins are an instrument to facilitate commerce.
Buying and selling coins as an object is just a matter of commerce between individuals under Chinese law and not something that requires protection. While the Chinese buyer can use the obsolete coin as an object of barter, bartering does not hold the same legal status as paying with legal tender currency. Basically, once it is demonetized for new coinage, just about anything goes.
Unlike United States law Chinese law does not recognize the perpetual legal tender status of every coin issued. Chinese law also recognizes that counterfeiting current issues of other countries is also illegal because someone could try to use the coin in commerce where it is legal to use foreign currency. This means that in China, it would be illegal to reproduce a presidential dollar or Washington quarter, but producing Morgan dollars or a set of 1921 Walking Liberty half-dollars is legal in China because these are coins no longer issued in the United States.
When China is asked to assist the United States to stop the counterfeiting of coins, China does not recognize that its people are doing anything wrong. The coins are no longer being made, they are not in circulation, and their laws allow people to make copies of these coins. China does not recognize a collectible coin market. In fact, the only laws they have regarding collectibles are laws protecting antiquities and cultural properties. Under Chinese law, you cannot duplicate the proverbial Ming Dynasty vase and try to pass it off as real but it is legal to reproduce a Rembrandt masterpiece since he is not Chinese and his work was not made in China.
The chinese can make fake eggs, grapes and fake lettuce. We lost. It's over. No sense in fighting it.
It sounds like a resurrection of the old Gold Sheet a failed idea circa 1988 or so which was concerned with Modern World Gold Coins - raw material of course slabbed mods were a novelty then. It was a good source of information along w AGW for each issue.
I would be curious to see it. Ironic. But if it's just for China don't see the point I would think they can price their own market - oh I see it's only for people in this country who can afford them and gullible enough to pay some 70 price.
I buy the 7 sheets for $45 onece a quarter off eBay which is all I care to spend on it - 2 lap dances and a drink.
Bill...sure that the gold sheet wasn't a carryout menu?
Bill, Glad you received your complimentary copy of the Goldsheet. This is part of our soft launch of this new product from CDN -- the first in many years from CDN. The Goldsheet is a pricing guide for Modern Chinese issues (just Pandas for now) because this is a very robust, yet volatile, market that many readers have requested from us. As an American dealer/collector you may choose to ignore this market, but Patrick Perez (Editor) and I just returned from our first coin show in Hong Kong and the show was packed. Collectors and dealers in Asia are very excited about US-style third-party grading from PCGS and NGC and CDN is trying to build a two-way bridge to this market.
I read constantly on these threads (and other sites) that the coin collector market is dying, etc. but it's not true. U.S. coins are flat overall, but the Asian market is really strong right now and it's worth everyone's attention. I had a chance to talk to @DonWillis at the show for almost an hour and he will support these sentiments...
Regardless, this is not a discussion on fakes, or otherwise. Yes, there are plenty of those, but that's a different discussion. What we are trying to do with the Goldsheet is give US dealers the buy-sell spreads to make accurate trades. All of our subscribers should get a free sheet over the next few months, or you can email us at orders@greysheet.com for a complimentary copy. Subscriptions are available at a discounted rate for the first few months.
John
Here's a few pics from the show:
Whitman Brands: President/CEO (www.greysheet.com; www.whitman.com)
PNG: Executive Director (www.pngdealers.org)
Any offering on ebay that might stir my interest now, is studied as best as possible, including seller, location, history, feedback.... and even then, I usually pass. If I know the seller, such as a recent purchase from a member here who sells on ebay, then I buy with confidence. If an offering is clearly China, I move on immediately. Cheers, RickO