Okay, so while lying awake last night on vacation, a thought came to me; Is a fake coin so perfectly reproduced that even experts and museum curators declare it genuine, truly fake?
So I realise, most people will probably say straight off 'Yeah, it's still a fake', and this is true but hear me out.
The value of every one of our coins above face (and sometimes, bullion) value is purely artificial; as in a 1933 British penny is inherently worth only a penny's worth of copper; it's the desire of humans to own one, and the relative unavailability of that type that brings up it's value.
But back to the point; hypothetically assuming we've got an exact, 'perfect' fake of a valuable coin, and people are bidding millions on it, Does that still make it a counterfeit by common definition? For all we know, a millionaire would go home with that perfect fake slabbed and it gets passed down for generations to come, and every collector looks at it in awe, knowing it as 'The rare 1922 whatever', with noone knowing it was originally a fake.
It's a bit like that tree falling in the forest question; if no one knows it's fake, and it passes in the community as a genuine coin, doesn't that in some way make it 'real' after a while, in a sense?
Hopefully no such perfect counterfeit will ever be produced to test my thinkings
For the sake of argument, let's assume it should be considered authentic. And let's imagine a scenario: in two decades from now, in 2037, someone comes up with a new technology that proves beyond doubt that it is a fake. So then, what happens? Two possible rationalizations:
1 ─ It was authentic for two decades and then it became a fake.
2 ─ It was a fake all along; it was just not detected as a fake for 20 years.
I believe only #2 holds true. All the time museums have pieces they consider authentic which are then shown to be probably or definitely forgeries. What do they do? They remove them from display...
If there is a doppelganger out there that is so exactly like me that he would fool my family, does that make him me? He may fool everyone into thinking that he's me, but essentially he's not me. I still exist and we can't both be me, and he can never have the same history and experiences that I have had.
It's the same with your coin question. The coin may fool everyone, but it doesn't have the same history as a real coin.
Also the genuine coins still exist, so with ultra rare coins it is actually easier to tell if a fake exists. Most of the ultra rare coins it's known who all the examples of them are owned by, so if only 5 coins are minted and 6 people claim ownership of them we know that one of them is a fake.
I also thought that, if we order so many coins, gold, silver, bullion, etc. etc. then do people here on Numista never know of the fake by another swapper or trading partner?
Counterfeit money are as old as the money itself. It's an essential part of the history and an interesting topic for collecting (of course, first of all I think of those fakes from the 17th century and older staff, no contemporary Chinese garbage).
This issue has been dealt with before, and it is not an easy one. However, Phillip K. Dick put it in very precise words in The Man in the High Castle. Many people do not collect objects, they collect history, and numismatics is not an exception. We do not collect metal discs, we collect little pieces of history. So if we feel that a metal disc comes with history, we will buy it. And that IS a feeling that we have no way of corroborate with reality unless we are willing to believe the opinion of experts. It can be a fake, but if it fools experts (and to clarify, the expert can be yourself or a third party), then we feel it has historicity; and if we feel that is has historicity, then it is not a fake.
“Well, I will tell you,” he said. “this whole damn historicity business is nonsense. Those Japs are bats. I’ll prove it.” Getting up, he hurried into his study, returned at once with two cigarette lighters which he set down in the coffee table. “Look at these, look the same, don’t they? Well, listen, one has historicity in it. “ He grinned at her. “Pick them up, go ahead. One’s worth, oh, maybe forty of fifteen thousands dollars on the collector’s market.”
The girl gingerly picked up the two loghters and examined them.
“Don’t you feel it,” He kidded her. “The historicity?”
She said “What is historicity?”
“When a thing has history in it. Listen. One of these two Zippo lighters was in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s pocket when he was assassinated. And one wasn’t. One has historicity, a hell lot of it. As much as any object ever had. And one has nothing, can you feel it?” He nudged her, “You can’t. You can’t tell which is which. There is no ‘mystical plasmic presence,’ no ‘aura’ around it.”
Quote: "neilithic"Let me answer your question with a question.
If there is a doppelganger out there that is so exactly like me that he would fool my family, does that make him me? He may fool everyone into thinking that he's me, but essentially he's not me. I still exist and we can't both be me, and he can never have the same history and experiences that I have had.
But what if you're the one who's the doppelganger? :O
I agree with a lot of the comments here, I collect for the history not the metal disc. Though the metal discs are beautiful.
If something is fake but has a history I'm probably interested in it. I do want to know that it's fake, but as part of the history.
If something is fake and we all declare it to be real then it's still a fake we've just given it a false attribute that suits our judgement. All currency has a degree of imaginary to it anyway, why should unknown copies/forgeries/reproductions be any different? Like Schrodinger's Cat it's both and neither.
Quote: "neilithic"Let me answer your question with a question.
If there is a doppelganger out there that is so exactly like me that he would fool my family, does that make him me? He may fool everyone into thinking that he's me, but essentially he's not me. I still exist and we can't both be me, and he can never have the same history and experiences that I have had.
But what if you're the one who's the doppelganger? :O
I agree with a lot of the comments here, I collect for the history not the metal disc. Though the metal discs are beautiful.
If something is fake but has a history I'm probably interested in it. I do want to know that it's fake, but as part of the history.
If something is fake and we all declare it to be real then it's still a fake we've just given it a false attribute that suits our judgement. All currency has a degree of imaginary to it anyway, why should unknown copies/forgeries/reproductions be any different? Like Schrodinger's Cat it's both and neither.
Oh really? Collectors of many kinds are present, most of them never care for history, cares only for the sake true gold and silver.
Quote: "SteveV"There are a variety of increasingly expensive forensic techniques which, if employed, WOULD detect any fake.
It's all a matter of how many scientists, spectographs, nuclear dating techniques, forensic metallurgists, etc., you want to put on the job.
That's not exactly the point, I was pondering that since all our coins are discs of crafted metal, if a coin made not by the mint it was supposed to have been made by passed over the radars of everyone (hypothetically), that collectors might 'learn to love' that coin in our ignorance of it's true origin, making it 'real' in the eyes of the collecting community.
Quote: "SteveV"There are a variety of increasingly expensive forensic techniques which, if employed, WOULD detect any fake.
It's all a matter of how many scientists, spectographs, nuclear dating techniques, forensic metallurgists, etc., you want to put on the job.
That's not exactly the point, I was pondering that since all our coins are discs of crafted metal, if a coin made not by the mint it was supposed to have been made by passed over the radars of everyone (hypothetically), that collectors might 'learn to love' that coin in our ignorance of it's true origin, making it 'real' in the eyes of the collecting community.
Quote: "MonaSeaclaid"
But what if you're the one who's the doppelganger? :O
I agree with a lot of the comments here, I collect for the history not the metal disc. Though the metal discs are beautiful.
If something is fake but has a history I'm probably interested in it. I do want to know that it's fake, but as part of the history.
If something is fake and we all declare it to be real then it's still a fake we've just given it a false attribute that suits our judgement. All currency has a degree of imaginary to it anyway, why should unknown copies/forgeries/reproductions be any different? Like Schrodinger's Cat it's both and neither.
Oh really? Collectors of many kinds are present, most of them never care for history, cares only for the sake true gold and silver.
I wasn't speaking for anyone but myself. I wouldn't say "most" do or don't care for history, I don't have the stats on that. I know for a fact that -many- do. I collect coins because they're both beautiful and have a wonderful mysterious story. If a coin is silver or gold that's nice, but I don't collect for future investment, I collect for present love. If my collection happens to provide me with unexpected funds in the future I'll be grateful but I'm not expecting it. Again, I speak only for myself.
I've said many times on this forum that there are as many types of collections as there are collectors.
Another problem is when someone illegally acquires the dies for a coin and strikes new copies identical to the real thing, but not legally authorized by the state or minting authority. These would probably be undetectable if the blanks are identical to those used by the state.
Quote: "MonaSeaclaid"
But what if you're the one who's the doppelganger? :O
I agree with a lot of the comments here, I collect for the history not the metal disc. Though the metal discs are beautiful.
If something is fake but has a history I'm probably interested in it. I do want to know that it's fake, but as part of the history.
If something is fake and we all declare it to be real then it's still a fake we've just given it a false attribute that suits our judgement. All currency has a degree of imaginary to it anyway, why should unknown copies/forgeries/reproductions be any different? Like Schrodinger's Cat it's both and neither.
Oh really? Collectors of many kinds are present, most of them never care for history, cares only for the sake true gold and silver.
I wasn't speaking for anyone but myself. I wouldn't say "most" do or don't care for history, I don't have the stats on that. I know for a fact that -many- do. I collect coins because they're both beautiful and have a wonderful mysterious story. If a coin is silver or gold that's nice, but I don't collect for future investment, I collect for present love. If my collection happens to provide me with unexpected funds in the future I'll be grateful but I'm not expecting it. Again, I speak only for myself.
I've said many times on this forum that there are as many types of collections as there are collectors.
True. But yes, I also agree with it, real or fake, gold or old, anything it is, I like the ''Designs'' of old coins.
My only problem is, that, even on Numista, if we order too much coins, and they give us fake, then our money will have gone to waste ( There actually have been several feedbacks regarding this case).
Collectors of many kinds are present, most of them never care for history, cares only for the sake true gold and silver. 