Have you bought any counterfeit items?

Question

Have you bought any counterfeit items?

Answer

Yes I have, for I collect counterfeit coins as well as fantasy coins coins that never existed. There is a fine line here and usually the secret service leaves us little guys alone for we take the items out of circulation and dont resell them. If we have extras we usually make sure they go to people that do the same. I also know they are not real before I buy them and never pay a lot. Most collectors that have been collecting for a good many years has at least one. Today a lot of replicas are out there with the word copy on them. They are nice to own, if the coin is one that is way out of ones price range. Some companies like the Royal Oak mint do a real nice job on their copies. There is one other mint, but it has been sold so I am not to sure what is up there, but they did some nice engraving as well as use the old style press from Colonial days and before. One other thing back in the there was a man named Robert Bashlow who made people think he was a numismatic scholar and got to be with some rare items alone. He made copy dies of these items, so we have Confederate cent copies made from a copy of the defaced original dies, as well as copies of Continental dollars from original copy dies floating around. I was lucky enough to get those coins back in the early s. Mr Bashlow died a mysterious death in Africa in the late s or early s. Today many strange coins are coming from China by way of Thailand as well as Vietnam. A friend who is in Thailand now, sent me a few silver dollars dated of the Seated liberty type, but with the reverse of the Trade Dollar that came out in . It goes to show the Chinese dont know the U.S. coinage very well, for a dated coin with the right obverse and reverse, kind of sticks out and even the novice collector on checking it out in the red Book notices something is wrong. I hope they check coins out before buying them. I will stop here for I could go on for sometime.