What are the chances of a forgery appearing of the
'Chekiang Province silver pattern coin, Huang Hsu, Year 23 (1897)'
recently sold at Baldwin's Hong Kong auction?
Apparently this was an overlooked specimen until owner showed up.
It may 'look' fake, but it's authenticity AND provenance was unquestionably proven and documented. It brought over $300,000.00 at major Hong Kong auction.
I wonder how many rare and priceless coins determined to be utter fakes, have turned out to be authentic...
sort of like some Justice systems; 'Guilty until proven innocent!'
It's an understandable reaction Dan, whenever I see a Chinese coin my default position is that it's a fake and I believe that 99% of the time it's justified.
Consider this - if that had been a British or American coin and was found to be a unique example of a previously unknown coin it would have fetched many times the price. Chinese coin dealers have shot themselves in the foot. They may not be the ones making the fakes but a large number of them have dirty hands in the subsequent distribution.
A country with such a long history should be one of the most popular to collect but greedy dealers and a complicit government have killed worldwide interest in Chinese coins. Ask anyone why they don't collect these and the answer is invariably, "fakes".
You can be pretty sure that even as we speak the Big Tree Coin Factory are making the dies for this coin.
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
Fact and logic are always strong deterrents to the wise at the edge of impulse, but greed has long been a most successful weapon against it's host.
It is unfortunate the one absolute protection against forgeries for coin collectors is abstention... I'm sure we all agree there is no enjoyment in that. One would have to [assume] it is a rarity when any collector escapes the unintentional ownership of a fake coin, especially in the early learning stages of the Hobby. I know I didn't!
I've also recently purchased this China coin, what are your thoughts?
Luckily, if you do know how to spot a fake, some nice pieces can often be found quite cheaply due to most collectors instinctively ignoring them. For instance, my local fair in London has a load of lovely old Chinese and Japanese silver available for relatively little, generally in high grades, for instance:
Anyone care to estimate a value for that to compare to what I paid?
99% of the "replicas" that those dealers acquire are thrown into a rummage tray with a price correlated to the size, and politely pointed out to anyone who innocently picks them out. No complaints here.
Catalogue referee for British, English and Scottish coins.
Le référent pour des pièces britannique, anglais et écossais.
(Day 1) Purchased raw coin, waiting for delivery
(Day 2) Sent private message w/image to Numista member for help in identification and authenticity.
Member responds without doubt coin is 'fake'.
(Day 3) I receive email of [unauthorized] cancellation of my purchase of coin and full refund of money.
Please let me know if you've experienced similar [coincidences].
Maybe the seller got NARU'd by eBay. Fakes are usually sold through stolen or fraudulent accounts and don't have a very long life cycle.
Interestingly, as more and more people become wary they are using Canadian addresses to conceal the fact that the coin's origin is China. Why Canada eh?
I try to avoid making concrete pronouncements on forgeries unless I can hold them in my hand. I defer to Kenny's judgment on Asian stuff.
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
Texas Seller is not associated with Ebay, and out of 1,894 listings, 3 were coin related... basic Craft store.
Seller's reason, to Host, for cancellation, ' Buyer and shop owner [agreed] to cancellation.'. Untrue, I had no prior knowledge. The fabricated statement leads a reasonable person to conclude there is another reason for cancellation, and it would not be unreasonable, in fact most probable, to believe it would be based on some change in existing agreements that would be more beneficial to Seller. Logical so far?
