Maybe we can pay off our debt to China using these fake American silver dollars (made in China) that are flooding the coin market?
I damn near had a heart attack last night after buying an 1893-S for $25.00! Book value in G-4 grade (nearly smooth) condition is $2500. I graded mine between AU-58 & MS-60 (nearly perfect)...book value $50,000 - $90,000. With this group were 5 other dollar coins, to include the 1796 small eagle trade dollar. The rest were also key collector dates, like the 1879-CC. Thankfully, I only paid $25 each, which was less than spot price for scrap silver yesterday.
Mrs. panax was already picking out curtains for our new motor home while I searched the net for a buyer for our treasure. That’s when I found the page linked below. Oh well, it was exciting while it lasted and very educational. The coins are nearly perfect in every way, to include that well-known “silver ring” sound.
I’ll be testing them for silver content (if any) this morning. I buy scrap gold/silver coins, jewelry etc. and never questioned for a second that they were NOT the genuine article. They were that good!
http://www.silver-coins.org/counterfeit_dollars.html
93s for $25, that’s pretty cool! Mine is an F-12 in a PCGS slab, probably not faked since PCGS mailed it to my friend. But apparantly there are fake slabs as well.
I once saw fake soybeans in China.
They were little balls of mud, with some kind of yellow powder applied to the outside.
It amazed me that it was worth someone’s time to actually create these out of mud, rather than simply go out and grow the damn things.
When the "real" coins sell for a significant premium over bullion, it is not unknown to encounter "fakes" with same, or even higher, gold/solver content as the real thing.