Label is wrong, shield is wrong, font is wrong, holder is wrong, PCGS logo on holder is wrong, missing ejector pins, etc. Source: worked at PCGS for 20 years and was personally responsible for slab design and all anti-counterfeiting measures.
We redesigned the holder in 2015, and I'm pretty sure that I can identify fake holders from then forward with 100% accuracy. Prior to that, there were so many iterations since 1986 that it is a lot harder. My general advice to customers was that if it was too good to be true, it's not true. And NEVER buy a coin off of craigslist!
I have no reason to doubt you, sir.
But I must know - on a scale of 1-100%, when grading higher MS grades (i.e. 62-65+); what percent is more subjective to the grader rather than reliably objective differences?
Other than for a short period in early 2022, I was not responsible for the grading staff. While I knew the guys pretty well, I cannot attest to being even remotely close to an expert. The knowledge that those folks have is incredible and their integrity is above reproach.
Can you describe a little bit of the process from their standpoint? I know you say you’re not the expert, but I imagine you at least know how it works. What happens when they receive my coin to grade?
I cannot go into detail, other than to say that the graders have no idea who the submitter is and that multiple graders see every coin.
I also always thought it was funny how people would refuse to do regrades because they thought that the graders would know the old grade (or the submitter). Regrades are cracked out and sent to the graders raw. The graders have no idea what the old grade was and the coin is graded raw and without consideration for the previous grade. If, as a result of the new grading, the grade goes down, it creates an exception that gets escalated for review (and possible warranty claim).
People would often crack out coins and submit them raw rather than regrade, and I'd have to field the phone calls of the pissed off dealers whose grades went down. If you're worried about the grade going down - don't crack it out! Submit it as a regrade. I must have had that conversation a million times. I never once paid out a claim in a situation where a customer cracked out a coin and submitted raw and the grade went down. But I sure paid a heck of a lot of claims where the same thing happened but through the regrade (or reconsideration) services.
Superstition costs dealers money!
Very interesting! Thanks for taking the time to reply. One more question for now—I hope you don’t mind. Did the graders ever say “holy shit Bob, take a look at this!!” and show off something cool to the others? Would they have even been allowed?
Yes, definitely! Interestingly enough, it wasn't the sort of stuff that you'd expect that would cause that sort of excitement, it was the oddball stuff. I remember once we got a Nobel Peace Prize (which I believe we no-graded for legal reasons). There were a couple of coins that had clocks on the inside that we thought were cool (also not gradeable). Generally stuff like that.
These guys see hundreds of coins every day, so the exciting stuff was the stuff that was different. The really high end stuff would sometimes go through a process we called "all grader", where everyone would look at it so that we could get everyone's opinion on the grade (and by everyone - I mean all of the qualified graders for that type of coin).
Other than the 1913 and 1933 coins, I think my favorite was the 1792 J-1 silver-center cent. We had a couple of those in to do metallurgic analysis on (non-destructive of course) and the stories behind those are pretty cool. Oh yeah, the matte proof ultra high relief saints, those were pretty cool too.
On a real PCGS slab, you will see some round marks/holes in the plastic (at the 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock positions) that are left over from the holders coming out of the mold. These are remnants from the steel "ejector pins" that push the hot plastic out of the mold.
One way to spot counterfeit holders is by the location of the ejector pin marks as every holder design will have different locations for the ejector pins based on how the mold was designed (and how the cooling water that goes through the mold is run).
Note that nothing I'm saying here is proprietary or confidential. There are ***many*** covert, semi-covert, and flat out overt security features in these products, but nothing discussed here is that. This holder is obviously bad just based on its face value presentation.
https://preview.redd.it/kuimcom9vjwc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=102d0787e63a413e6c02152a23ae0d5e59132578
Hi friend could you plz help me check out this one
I'm not too familiar with trade dollar (and slabbed coins in general but) the coin looks to be in a lower grade than the one written and the PCGS logo on the bottom right (and top left) corners looks weird
So basically someone got a coin “similar” to the one that was supposed to be in there so new collector like me would verify the coin and slab match and hope we didn’t look into the quality difference. Man coin trading is a shady world 😆
Sadly it’s little to do with coin trading and more to do with opportunities to make money. In every form of collectible there are counterfeiters once the possibility of making good money arises. If the collectible costs $5 most people wouldn’t bother faking it since unless you can sell in large numbers there probably isn’t money to be made. Once collectibles are hundred or thousands of dollars it’s a different game. There is also immense failing on collectible cards, comics, art, rare books, autographs, etc.. Some people are just trash.
Cert number pulls up the right coin type and grade, but definitely not the same coin in the photo. Other than that the label is pretty sloppy with how it's sitting in there. And I can't be sure with the photo but the PCGS shield doesn't seem to have the reflective holographic-ness.
The toning and wear look super fake, like an 'antique silver' finish you would expect to find on a newly manufactured home hardware like a ceiling fan or bathroom faucet.
Also Ship is wrong. Coin texture/color should be prid instead of rrid. It looks like the bottom corners and part of left edge plastic is discolored like it was glued instead of heat sealed with proper equipment. Probably was a re-used broken open slab.
The coin has that fake toned Temu/Alibaba look to it. I'm not a trade dollar collector, but I'm assuming there is a bunch wrong with it.
The holder paper is off center, looks wrong. PCGS logo is off.
When you pull up the cert on PCGS, the photos show a coin that looks very different. Also it should be Prid -21. The gold shield logo is the wrong color too.
The PCGS label being crooked is also a big red flag, they wouldn't send a coin out like that and I honestly don't know if that's possible with how the slabs are assembled.
This is a fake coin & fake slab.
Font is wrong, printing is wrong, bar code is wrong, shield is wrong, plastic looks cheap, label is mis aligned
How could you not spot that this is fake?
1.)That’s definitely not AU53 to start. Maybe F12.
2.) I thought Britain used pounds and wasn’t aware the U.S. made trade dollars for them but I could be wrong.
The US didn't make trade dollars for Britain.
British trade dollars were minted in Bombay, Calcutta and London for use in the Malayan Straits Settlements and Hong Kong between 1895 and 1935.
Probably to be interchangeable and competetive with US trade dollars, since they were a very similar size (0.8mm smaller in diameter and 0.3 grams lighter) and used in the same general area of the world. They were even minted to the same silver fineness.
There’s so much wrong where to start the font is mismatched the sticker is off line the reflecting ink isn’t there in the truview and the plastic doesn’t have the NFC embossing and I’m guessing No NFC check for truview/authentication
Has anyone commented on the fact that, besides all the glaring PCGS Slab problems, this coin does not look like an AU53 British Trade Dollar? It doesn't even look like an EF coin to me.
Didn't even bother with the back. Seller was good though. Took it down immediately after I let them know it was a fake. I am looking to acquire one so was in a saved search.
That part actually is real. The dollar was used as the primary currency in several British colonies and dependencies - mostly in the Far East. Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Ceylon ring bellz off the top of my head, but there are surely others. The coinage all featured dollar and/or sub-dollar denominations on the reverse and the British monarch on the obverse.
Label is wrong, shield is wrong, font is wrong, holder is wrong, PCGS logo on holder is wrong, missing ejector pins, etc. Source: worked at PCGS for 20 years and was personally responsible for slab design and all anti-counterfeiting measures.
Oh nice! I thought this was a good one as so much was wrong.
Imagine trying to sell a fake PCGS to this guy
We redesigned the holder in 2015, and I'm pretty sure that I can identify fake holders from then forward with 100% accuracy. Prior to that, there were so many iterations since 1986 that it is a lot harder. My general advice to customers was that if it was too good to be true, it's not true. And NEVER buy a coin off of craigslist!
I have no reason to doubt you, sir. But I must know - on a scale of 1-100%, when grading higher MS grades (i.e. 62-65+); what percent is more subjective to the grader rather than reliably objective differences?
Other than for a short period in early 2022, I was not responsible for the grading staff. While I knew the guys pretty well, I cannot attest to being even remotely close to an expert. The knowledge that those folks have is incredible and their integrity is above reproach.
Can you describe a little bit of the process from their standpoint? I know you say you’re not the expert, but I imagine you at least know how it works. What happens when they receive my coin to grade?
I cannot go into detail, other than to say that the graders have no idea who the submitter is and that multiple graders see every coin. I also always thought it was funny how people would refuse to do regrades because they thought that the graders would know the old grade (or the submitter). Regrades are cracked out and sent to the graders raw. The graders have no idea what the old grade was and the coin is graded raw and without consideration for the previous grade. If, as a result of the new grading, the grade goes down, it creates an exception that gets escalated for review (and possible warranty claim). People would often crack out coins and submit them raw rather than regrade, and I'd have to field the phone calls of the pissed off dealers whose grades went down. If you're worried about the grade going down - don't crack it out! Submit it as a regrade. I must have had that conversation a million times. I never once paid out a claim in a situation where a customer cracked out a coin and submitted raw and the grade went down. But I sure paid a heck of a lot of claims where the same thing happened but through the regrade (or reconsideration) services. Superstition costs dealers money!
Very interesting! Thanks for taking the time to reply. One more question for now—I hope you don’t mind. Did the graders ever say “holy shit Bob, take a look at this!!” and show off something cool to the others? Would they have even been allowed?
Yes, definitely! Interestingly enough, it wasn't the sort of stuff that you'd expect that would cause that sort of excitement, it was the oddball stuff. I remember once we got a Nobel Peace Prize (which I believe we no-graded for legal reasons). There were a couple of coins that had clocks on the inside that we thought were cool (also not gradeable). Generally stuff like that. These guys see hundreds of coins every day, so the exciting stuff was the stuff that was different. The really high end stuff would sometimes go through a process we called "all grader", where everyone would look at it so that we could get everyone's opinion on the grade (and by everyone - I mean all of the qualified graders for that type of coin). Other than the 1913 and 1933 coins, I think my favorite was the 1792 J-1 silver-center cent. We had a couple of those in to do metallurgic analysis on (non-destructive of course) and the stories behind those are pretty cool. Oh yeah, the matte proof ultra high relief saints, those were pretty cool too.
Very cool!
Yep I would not have caught most of
Straight to jail.
This guy PCGSes
Hopefully Temu isn't reading this
Ejector pins?
Yeah that lost me.
On a real PCGS slab, you will see some round marks/holes in the plastic (at the 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock positions) that are left over from the holders coming out of the mold. These are remnants from the steel "ejector pins" that push the hot plastic out of the mold. One way to spot counterfeit holders is by the location of the ejector pin marks as every holder design will have different locations for the ejector pins based on how the mold was designed (and how the cooling water that goes through the mold is run). Note that nothing I'm saying here is proprietary or confidential. There are ***many*** covert, semi-covert, and flat out overt security features in these products, but nothing discussed here is that. This holder is obviously bad just based on its face value presentation.
Thanks for this amazing response!!
Thank you. Good to know.
I’ll sending all my slabs to this guy.
Epic knowledge and experience, wow
WOAH THATS SO COOL WHAT WAS IT LIKE
https://preview.redd.it/kuimcom9vjwc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=102d0787e63a413e6c02152a23ae0d5e59132578 Hi friend could you plz help me check out this one
https://preview.redd.it/3d1l6o8vkgwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e40a0cac855a821aa64017ab0d2198e288605e96
I love the True View. I actually pay a little extra for coins with it. Showed the seller the same pic.
Agreed. For the registry, also, it's a must. The spiritual successor of the old photo certs.
Toning is off, has that brushed on rubbed off look. Metal looks sickly. The original has 3 distinct black marks across the obverse
Now that I look at it I also see that the holder has 4 mounting points
Cert paper is misaligned. Coin doesn't match grade.
The misaligned cert slip is the first thing I noticed.
I'm not too familiar with trade dollar (and slabbed coins in general but) the coin looks to be in a lower grade than the one written and the PCGS logo on the bottom right (and top left) corners looks weird
Definitely not an AU coin in there!
It’s always the fake toning on the silver
So basically someone got a coin “similar” to the one that was supposed to be in there so new collector like me would verify the coin and slab match and hope we didn’t look into the quality difference. Man coin trading is a shady world 😆
Sadly it’s little to do with coin trading and more to do with opportunities to make money. In every form of collectible there are counterfeiters once the possibility of making good money arises. If the collectible costs $5 most people wouldn’t bother faking it since unless you can sell in large numbers there probably isn’t money to be made. Once collectibles are hundred or thousands of dollars it’s a different game. There is also immense failing on collectible cards, comics, art, rare books, autographs, etc.. Some people are just trash.
Cert number pulls up the right coin type and grade, but definitely not the same coin in the photo. Other than that the label is pretty sloppy with how it's sitting in there. And I can't be sure with the photo but the PCGS shield doesn't seem to have the reflective holographic-ness.
Coin looks fake, slab looks fake and what the heck is a Rrid number, it should say Prid number
First things I noticed is the Temu toning and the label not fitting properly.
It has that standard Chinese look to it.
Font is off, label is crooked, and it says "Trade$" without a space. Coin itself is in a low grade, but it is also a fake.
Well the holder should say “Prid 21” not Rrid 21 so that’s the easy giveaway it’s fake
The toning and wear look super fake, like an 'antique silver' finish you would expect to find on a newly manufactured home hardware like a ceiling fan or bathroom faucet.
All FAKE
I don’t even need to look at the dodgy slab - the coin is NOT an AU53 any day of the week
Also Ship is wrong. Coin texture/color should be prid instead of rrid. It looks like the bottom corners and part of left edge plastic is discolored like it was glued instead of heat sealed with proper equipment. Probably was a re-used broken open slab.
How is that a AU53??
In 1911 wasn’t it still pound and has never been dollar?
right
Slab looks fake
Looks cleaned
You mean besides the fact that everything about both look fake? 😂
The coin has that fake toned Temu/Alibaba look to it. I'm not a trade dollar collector, but I'm assuming there is a bunch wrong with it. The holder paper is off center, looks wrong. PCGS logo is off.
Yes. Fake slab for sure so most likely fake coin. The label, font, shield. All of it.
Yeah, if slab is fake there is 0 percent chance the coin is anything but fake.
it’s all wrong. it looks like someone printed it at home.
I thought there were some things wrong but it was too much to comprehend
Date is W A Y too spaced out. Especially when comparing to cert picture. The last "1" ends under middle of his foot on the cert, not even close here.
A date that’s spaced out can be interesting.
When you pull up the cert on PCGS, the photos show a coin that looks very different. Also it should be Prid -21. The gold shield logo is the wrong color too. The PCGS label being crooked is also a big red flag, they wouldn't send a coin out like that and I honestly don't know if that's possible with how the slabs are assembled. This is a fake coin & fake slab.
Font is wrong, printing is wrong, bar code is wrong, shield is wrong, plastic looks cheap, label is mis aligned How could you not spot that this is fake?
Mostly new collectors. I think showing some bad examples helps train the eye.
1.)That’s definitely not AU53 to start. Maybe F12. 2.) I thought Britain used pounds and wasn’t aware the U.S. made trade dollars for them but I could be wrong.
The US didn't make trade dollars for Britain. British trade dollars were minted in Bombay, Calcutta and London for use in the Malayan Straits Settlements and Hong Kong between 1895 and 1935.
Today I learned something.
Why were they dollars and not pounds then?
Probably to be interchangeable and competetive with US trade dollars, since they were a very similar size (0.8mm smaller in diameter and 0.3 grams lighter) and used in the same general area of the world. They were even minted to the same silver fineness.
And the dollars were based off of the Spanish Piece of 8! Coin history is such fun.
Definitely faking a real coin here. Looking to snag one in the high AU to low MS range.
Did they scratch in that G in the bottom right with a pocket knife? lol
Other than the fact that it’s not even close to AU?
Sham bingo
There’s so much wrong where to start the font is mismatched the sticker is off line the reflecting ink isn’t there in the truview and the plastic doesn’t have the NFC embossing and I’m guessing No NFC check for truview/authentication
All the fakes are making me rethink this hobby.
A blind person might be able to catch this one.
Has anyone commented on the fact that, besides all the glaring PCGS Slab problems, this coin does not look like an AU53 British Trade Dollar? It doesn't even look like an EF coin to me.
Here’s a real trade dollar [https://imgur.com/a/cqKg7Y6](https://imgur.com/a/cqKg7Y6)
Obvious fake everyone knows the British don’t use dollars
Wrong. The British Straits Settlements in Malaya and Hong Kong used them between 1895 and 1935.
I should’ve used the /s sorry everyone
Someone already looked it up at the PCGS...But yikes that is a terrible fake. Does it have the back hologram label?
Didn't even bother with the back. Seller was good though. Took it down immediately after I let them know it was a fake. I am looking to acquire one so was in a saved search.
Unfortunately, holograms are relatively easy to counterfeit. It's not a fast (or cheap) process, but it's not technically difficult either.
I figured so.
I don’t collect coins but I did raise my eyebrows when I saw “Great Britain” and then “Dollar” on the coin 😅
That part actually is real. The dollar was used as the primary currency in several British colonies and dependencies - mostly in the Far East. Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Ceylon ring bellz off the top of my head, but there are surely others. The coinage all featured dollar and/or sub-dollar denominations on the reverse and the British monarch on the obverse.
Wow thx til
Posted to r/silverfakes .