Cleaning up the coin market

[Peckris 579]

better available online resources would help.

we can buy books on varietes Etc, but those are expensive so a lot of people will not have the access to the information on die types, let alone distinguish 1 from another (epsecially when its such a tiny differance)let alone find the few online pictures of such.

perhaps we can start doing that here? links to good sites to view Varieties, etc a bigger resource pool people can access.

we have a book on grading, which i have, and use, as i feel it is more or less spot on, we can forget orgnaisations, especially as they use the US system.

as for fakes.

here is a solution, a fair few people have found fakes and shown why they are fakes, now there is NOTHING (and if thier is its not easy to find) that shows common fakes and how to spot them, we know about china and thier fakes which people have identified here, perhaps it is time we had that facility.

people will try to pull the wool, other times it is a genuine mistake, but sometimes its knowledge that is the problem. education is key. if such a site was put together and then put in the infomration on ebay (you know, there is a bit with articles) it would be a lot harder for the conners, to con, and the people buying can make up thier own mind.

The problem is, some of the Chinese fakes are so good, the only way to spot a particular one is when two coins turn up with EXACTLY the same blemishes/minor spots, etc. The first would fool an expert. The second, side by side with the first, would show they are both fakes taken from the same original. There's no way to cover those, and they are the biggest menace, in my book.

What makes it more dangerous these days is that the original Chinese fakes have now been sold on two or three times since which results in a lack of alarm bells ringing when these forgeries come up for sale.

And when the original comes up, what then? It's such a can of worms.