What happens when counterfeits are so good that they cannot be detected?
Insider2
Posts: 14,452 ✭✭✭✭✭
This question appeared in another discussion. The poster asked a great question, however, rather than "sidetrack" that thread, what do you think?
@sellitstore said: "@totellthetruth raises and important question and one that numismatists like to ignore. I have pondered it many times, too. What happens when the counterfeits become so good as to be undetectable? By definition, the experts wouldn't know if they were looking at authentic vs counterfeit items.
3
Comments
Yeah, and i'm still waiting for the answer!
My guess is they would have to be accepted as "Legit". If no amount of inspection, metallurgy, or testing could discern the differences, yet there are more available than records indicate, I would think a few things would happen:
Mint records would be called into question (if a 20,000 reported production of XYZ has 55,000 examples certified for instance without crossovers) then folks would initially think records are wrong.
If records are confirmed as well as possible, that date/MM combo would likely get an asterisks next to it in all numismatic catalogs with something like "Restrikes Exist" - or "Indistinguishable counterfeits exist" or perhaps "Indistinguishable private mintage exists" type of thing.
Prices of what was once the known original legit examples would drop greatly to meet the mintage/availability of the new known/believed known quantity.
Beyond that, what else could you really do?
"You Suck Award" - February, 2015
Discoverer of 1919 Mercury Dime DDO - FS-101
I think then the coin is called: change
BHNC #203
Wasn't it a "micro O" version of some date of Morgan Dollar that passed as legit for many years....only to be deemed a counterfeit much later?
So, it's not impossible, and one could imagine some other fake passing around the hobby right now.....
I'll leave it to the experts to say how LIKELY it is. Matching ALL of the characteristics of a US Mint made product probably isn't trivial. Getting the dies right would only be the first step....
What happens when counterfeits are so good that they cannot be detected?...............................the counterfeiter places a microscopic symbol, maybe the Greek letter omega, somewhere on the coin hidden in the design.
The counterfeiter gets a high paying job in government showing the experts how to run business and make better coins. I guess. This is a “guessing site” , right ?
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
There are a few mint records discussing this problem, and usually they came up with a way to detect both counterfeit and altered (center of DE/E/HE) removed and filled) coins. A Loudoun Snowden commented that some he had examined would not be detected by the most careful banker and that some must be circulating.
Counterfeiters wanted a quick, quiet profit. Gold was not a good option (except for the $1) - alteration & sweating were the best options. That left only silver and minor coins for profitable counterfeiting.
By definition if the fake can;t be detected, then "it is undetectable." But achieving this is very difficult and requires incentives well beyond ordinary seigniorage, or metal substitution. The Morgan dollars mentioned above, might have been identified a century ago - documents discuss fake Morgans - but there is not enough detail to match comments to coins.
And at a much cheaper cost! I can buy fake Morgans and TD's today for under $1 that are really able to fool a lot of people. Would that not be a great business model?
bob
I still doubt that on a widespread scale, it could be done so as to be undetectable, microscopically speaking. In the other thread, nondestructive TXRF testing for trace elements was mentioned. As that becomes easier to do/more expected, perhaps even more sophisticated tests will come to the fore, and might be even faster to accomplish. Always in the effort of staying one step ahead of the counterfeiters.
If there was a "new to the market" gem mint state 1796 and 1797 half dollar pair, I'd want every possible known test to be passed by them with flying colors. And even then, they might be looked at askance for a number of years.
It could possibly hurt the market for the said coin.
My YouTube Channel
RE: "If there was a "new to the market" gem mint state 1796 and 1797 half dollar pair, I'd want every possible known test to be passed by them with flying colors. And even then, they might be looked at askance for a number of years."
True. But that's detection by inference. The OP's question seemed to be directed toward circulating coins where that and similar methods don't work. Consider small dollars in Bolivia or US quarters in Peru.
Actually, I cover both circulating and collectible counterfeits in my post in the other thread. I'm more concerned with the collectible items now. The US government is handling counterfeiting of the circulating currency.
@Insider2-thanks for starting this thread in order to keep the Omega thread on track. I think that this was one of the points that @totellthetruth was making with his posts but this is a separate subject. I raised the question in the Omega thread and discussed the problem as related to currency but another discussion is appropriate here.
Currency plates and presses used in the 1800s have been used and are still being used to print from 19th century plates. Reprints are closely related to coins struck from original dies. If you haven't read my comments in the Omega thread that relate to this discussion, it might be worthwhile.
@keets said: "What happens when counterfeits are so good that they cannot be detected?...............................the counterfeiter places a microscopic symbol, maybe the Greek letter omega, somewhere on the coin hidden in the design."
These coins WERE DETECTED by a "qualified" examiner the first time they were examined at high power (40X). They were not detected by him the few times thy were examined at 7X under the scope. The main reason detection was so easy is the counterfeiters "touched -up" the fake dies in a way that was never seen (and AFAIK still has still not been seen) on a genuine US coin.
@TwoSides2aCoin said: "The counterfeiter gets a high paying job in government showing the experts how to run business and make better coins. I guess. This is a “guessing site” , right ?
Bingo, Exceptional cheaters, hackers, etc. are hired to help catch others all the time.
@RogerB said: "There are a few mint records discussing this problem, and usually they came up with a way to detect both counterfeit and altered (center of DE/E/HE) removed and filled) coins. A Loudoun Snowden commented that some he had examined would not be detected by the most careful banker and that some must be circulating.
By definition if the fake can;t be detected, then "it is undetectable." But achieving this is very difficult and requires incentives well beyond ordinary seigniorage, or metal substitution. The Morgan dollars [**Micro "O"] mentioned above, might have been identified a century ago - documents discuss fake Morgans - but there is not enough detail to match comments to coins."
Roger has brought up probably the most deceptive coins in U.S. history. It seems they were products of Mexico and circulated around the turn of the 20th Century when they were detected. Sometime later they came back into the system and were not detected for fifty years. Many were even authenticated. These coins IN CIRCULATED CONDITION were much more deceptive than the "Omega" fakes.
Unfortunately for the hobby (and the unsuspecting 'customer') it seems to be a business model for some.
K
Bob, Those coins are "Junk!" Most only fool the non-collector. Oh, they are also good enough to fool the uninformed collectors who IMHO comprise at least 85% of all collectors.
One of the biggest challenges is that historical production methods which became obsolete among "professionals" years ago are still being employed in certain parts of the world. It would be very difficult to make an undetectable vintage fake on modern equipment (in almost any field, not just coins), but when you are using exactly the same processes and tools as they used way back when, then it becomes easier.
I am hoping that forensic examination (die characteristics, etc.) will be the undoing of even the best counterfeits, but in order for that to work a known fake needs to be uncovered first. The micro O Morgans are a perfect example.
If there are or will be undetectable counterfeits, we wouldn't know and will continue to live in blissful ignorance.
I think the sudden, or not sudden, "extra supply" would have the same affect as the bags of "key date" dollars released in the 50's and 60's.
Collector, occasional seller
@Insider2 ...You are correct... uninformed collectors - and likely non-collectors looking to invest...are scammed every day on ebay...and other venues. It is always sad to see a fake coin 'sold' on ebay... Cheers, RickO
Actually, not quite. One of my authentication instructors (Fazzari while working at PCI) was the first professional authenticator to "discover/detect" the first 1896-O "Micro O" he ever saw (1993?). He said that the coin was virtually BU and in just 2-3 seconds under the scope at low power he was 100% sure the coin was a newly made fake. It's surface was similar - granular and "fatty" to the 1896-P detected years earlier and published in the Numismatist magazine.
Unfortunately, his opinion was overruled by well-known professional Morgan dollar "EX-PERTS." It took several years before other authenticators realized these coins were on the market and other dates existed. Fazzari told us if that 1896-o had been in the typical F-VF condition seen, he would have probably never detected it even using his high power scope. Proof of his statement is that these coins had been around for decades.
There’s probably a “sweet spot” as far as time when a “perfect” counterfeit could be introduced.
Under those constraints, there are probably a select few opportunities to get your “perfect” counterfeit accepted as “normal”.
Your best bet may be making a “perfect” copy of a known variety....but then you have a population explosion issue....and we all know that “perfect” is a goal, and seldom an actual achievement.
....
It's not true that no amount of work could discern the difference between a real copy and a nearly identical fake that passes every test you can think of. How do they authenticate paintings when a new Monet or Da Vinci type painting is discovered? Or another painting from any old famous dead person? How do they detect frauds that were made more recently?
There is a way. You can thank atmospheric nuclear bomb testing for creating trace amounts of new isotopes that weren't around before the 1940s. This is one way that is used to do it. So there is a quantifiable difference and a way to authenticate.
Successful transactions with: wondercoin, Tetromibi, PerryHall, PlatinumDuck, JohnMaben/Pegasus Coin & Jewelry, CoinFlip, and coinlieutenant.
There is a simple answer to this:
When counterfied coins get so perfect that nobody can see the difference, the counterfied detection tools will get very perfect too. And the main tool can be to determine the age of a coin, when it was made. No matter how good a counterfied will be, it never will be made in 1796, being more than 200 years old, but somewhere in 2020 or so.
So it will always be possible to detect counterfied coins by age, even if they are made in 2050 and look exactly the same incl. patina and everything, PCGS will find them and not grade them.
AFAIK, Great Britain has had several cases of counterfeit, common contemporary coins in their monetary system.
and PCGS will raise prices.
This was going to be more or less my post. Counterfeit production and counterfeit detection both are always improving as time goes on. Like PCGS mentioned with their new Gold Shield program they are staying 2 steps ahead of the counterfeiters.
Yup, I don't disagree with you - but the OP clearly stated "What if" there was absolutely no way.
For what we know today, in his hypothetical situation, at least with coins, there would have to be a few constants given the testing available today.
1) It would have to use original dies - or dies created from original hubs or original sculptings, etc - I think it would be hard to make indiscernible copies simply from a coin
2) The planchet would have to be from period. If I'm going to counterfeit 1896-O Barber Half Dollars, I would probably buy a bunch of normal 1896 (p) coins and use those as planchets - would likely never tell the difference metal-wise.
Again, I don't disagree that with some high-tech testing of some sort, it's possible to tell differences, but the Hypothetical was what if there was NO WAY to tell.
"You Suck Award" - February, 2015
Discoverer of 1919 Mercury Dime DDO - FS-101
I don't believe that current technology allows one to date a coin by it's metallic content or properties. Carbon 14 nor radioactive decay will work with a coin. We can hope that our detection tools keep up but there is no guarantee of this.
Well, if they identified the fakes....then they weren't perfect!
Without knowing how they are identified, I don't know if the extra cost required to correct the error would have wiped out their profit, or not.....But I'll make that claim just because I can.
I would think it would make a coin's provenance even more important. Records and knowledge will reward collectors. Imaging and computers tracking coins seem to be helpful in proving authenticity. Companies like PCGS become more important and even expert eyes like JA and CAC.
Also, this is not just a "coin" issue. The art world is constantly dealing with this and it certainly has not stopped collecting. I would assume the investment and technology for a real good forgery would mean also that numismatic as a hobby or an investment was worth the time to devote such energy to a forgery---in other words meaning our hobby was healthy.
If the question really is "What happens when counterfeits are so good that they cannot be detected?" then the answer is simple. If they cannot be detected then they are the same as genuine.
Most of the posts here debate the premise. Or, said another way, they are addressing the question "Can counterfeits be so good they cannot be detected?".
Lance.
Or, genuine is the same as fake. Same result, though.
To be fair, the original question has been answered. IF you can't detect a counterfeit, you can't detect it. So it would have be deemed genuine. Presumably then things like provenance will become much more important and coins without a long provenence will be viewed more skeptically.
But, technologically, I don't think we will ever be in a situation like the one detailed in OP's question, I think that expertise in dies as well as nuclear physics will ensure we never get there. If they can authenticate paintings, they will find a way to do it for coins too. And I think this is just as relevant as OP's question, because if we never get there, this question is just a hypothetical.
Successful transactions with: wondercoin, Tetromibi, PerryHall, PlatinumDuck, JohnMaben/Pegasus Coin & Jewelry, CoinFlip, and coinlieutenant.
They just replaced the pound coin for that reason.
Collector, occasional seller
Are more recent counterfeits detectable from background radiation (like pre-1945 steel is)? Do radionuclides like cobalt-60 occur in silver and gold?
Pacific Northwest Numismatic Association
What happens when the counterfeits become so good as to be undetectable? By definition, the experts wouldn't know if they were looking at authentic vs counterfeit items.
Would we then have a numismatic "Ship of Theseus" paradox (sort of)?
See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
We need to crack down heavy on the purps and take the offense serious. Punishment must be so that it weeds out at least the garage guys. Next the mints have to change the process in a manner that makes it difficult to replicate. Finally on the older products we must do our part by not buying garbage from known offenders. You won’t stop all but we can reduce the occurrence.
Best place to buy !
Bronze Associate member
You mean the Mona Lisa on my den wall might not be real??
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
I "know someone" who has a collection of those. They range from horrendous to near-perfect. As far as I know, the fakes can always be identified with enough scrutiny, but the general public would never catch the best of the forgeries.
Yup, won't fool a TD collector but just about any other will be fooled. Think shopping for your type set. Bet those folks don't know much about the series and are collectors and just might be fooled. I agree 85% is probably accurate.
bob
It would have been much tougher had they not used the same reverse die for all 3 fakes.
A lot of eyebrows would be raised if a partial bag of say 650 1895 Morgans was to come to light. That would be one coin worth counterfeiting.
If you were referring to the micro-O Morgans, that was my understanding, that a common die among different dates eventually uncovered the scheme many decades later. That is what I meant when I mentioned forensics. Were it not for that, the forgeries might have escaped detection, at least by the larger numismatic community (per @Insider2 's post above).
@PhilLynott said: "Counterfeit production and counterfeit detection both are always improving as time goes on. Like PCGS mentioned with their new Gold Shield program they are staying 2 steps ahead of the counterfeiters."
Previously, I could post that no TPGS can stay a step ahead with a holder. The coin is the important part of the equation. Now, the holders are being faked also. We are going to need to rely mostly on the TPGS's to catch these with the help of the millions of eyes checking their products.
@astrorat said: "Would we then have a numismatic "Ship of Theseus" paradox (sort of)?
Sorry, I'm a junior high dropout with no access to the internet. "Ship of What? Do we? Please help.
You had me going for half a second (not the high school drop out part, the part about no Internet), until I reminded myself that posting here might be a little difficult to say the least.
If they're perfect, then how do you know they're counterfeits, or even that counterfeits for that coin exists?
One must know a counterfeit exists to know there are counterfeits. If they are perfect, then it would pass inspection as genuine, and it wouldn't be a counterfeit in the eyes of the experts. So in effect, as others pointed out, the piece would have to be accepted as genuine.
And just why is it that the more I type counterfeits, the more it looks misspelled?
A piece of metal only becomes a fake if people realize it and it no longer serves its purpose. Non-genuine and altered coins have played a role in commerce forever. Additionally, any fake housed in a collection is considered to be genuine if the buyer has no clue that it is not.
As just a typical collector, I have seen the evolution of counterfeits and the methods of detection. When the Omega's came out, so-called "Ex-Perts" were measuring the size and weight of coins to authenticate them. Needless to say, they only detected the obvious "junk." Thankfully the ANA set up an authentication service. That's when stereo microscopes and florescent light (THE ONLY LIGHT suitable for coin authentication!) leveled the field forever.
The newest counterfeits are always the best (State-of-the-Art) unless you are uninformed about the older ones. That's because over time, the counterfeits seem to stay at one level of perfection, then Boom, a jump in quality occurs. This relegates a formerly extremely deceptive counterfeit (that has already been detected by a TPGS) into the "junk" category! That's what happened to ALL the "dangerous" counterfeits of the 1970's. Many (not the HR's) just get melted and can no longer be used for instruction.
I forgot to answer the question. A coin is either fake or not in the eye of the examiner or collector. If they think it is genuine - for all intent and purposes it is!
PS In class we learned that sometimes very qualified folks cannot determine the authenticity of a piece. Other times, some say good while others disagree. I personally know of over a half dozen cases where only one person was lined up against his peers - and the single authenticator was found to be correct.
You need to know the qualifications of the person giving an opinion. Most of the best opinions come from the TPGS, auction houses, or specialists of a particular series.
eventually they will be detected as counterfeits. It may be a generation or 2 down the road. Enter the micro o Morgan dollars. They are now known to be spurious but are highly collectable as such. There are more tools available now and a legion of research can be at one's fingertips. Metallurgy is more known and understood and tools to know specific composition are accessible for most hobbyist. The micro o Morgans were discovered to be a more pure silver then there mint made counterparts.