AVOIDING FAKE ANCIENT COINS ON EBAY

PREV ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE FULL ISSUE PREV FULL ISSUE

V19 2016 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 19, Number 50, December 11, 2016, Article 21

In his December 6, 2016 CoinWeek, Mike Markowitz recommended this article from a UK eBay user on "How to avoid buying fake ancient coins on eBay". I agree that it's very well done and provides solid, sensible, actionable advice. Here's an excerpt. -Editor

If you buy a Greek or Roman coin from a major auction house specializing in numismatic material your chances of acquiring a fake coin are relatively slight and for that assurance you usually pay a premium price. There are far more bargains to be had on eBay and far more fakes (masses of them in fact.) Some of these fakes are pretty obvious, others deceptively clever. The following advice is intended primarily for new or relatively inexperienced collectors but, having said that, I am continually surprised to see some experienced collectors and dealers throwing caution to the wind. Here then are my tips for minimizing your chances of buying fake ancient coins on eBay:

1.Private listings. Alarm bells should start to ring whenever you see that a seller of coins has opted for private listings. Never buy coins from any seller using private listings no matter how tasty the coins look. Nearly all purveyers who knowingly sell fake coins or who routinely mix bad with good, use private listings so that buyers cannot be alerted after the auction closes through their feedback. No doubt some honest coin sellers use private listings as well but let's face it, ancient coins are not blue movies and the occasional arguments coin sellers use to justify private listings are feeble and self-serving. Even if you see 100% positive feedback and strong bidding taking place do not be tempted. One of the most successful sellers of dubious ancient coins and artefacts on eBay had 99.5% positive feedback from over 4000 satisfied and , in many cases, deluded customers before being banned recently by eBay for engaging in schill bidding.

How do you know if a listing is private? Until recently it was dead easy, "User ID kept private" appeared at the top of the listing. Then eBay in their wisdom decided to change the format of listings and the prominence of this useful bit of information disappeared. Nowadays you have to scroll down to the very bottom of the listing and in very small print you'll see "this is a private listing", so many eBayers probably start bidding without realising the auction is private. You can also click onto bid history to ascertain if the listing is private, or you can click onto the seller's feedback to see if they routinely use private listings. The reason the fakes' sellers like private listings is because when the buyer eventually leaves feedback you are not able to see what they've purchased and so they cannot easily be alerted to the fact that they've bought a fake. And if the fakes' seller also opts for private feedback you won't even see the buyer's ID.

Having established that private listings are a no-go area, study the seller's feedback. Avoid sellers with just a handful of feedback ratings especially if they're for penny purchases, or not for ancient coins at all, or are for low grade ancients and suddenly the guy has some mouth-watering stuff for sale.

A little homework on a seller's feedback can make you pause. One prolific purveyor of fake ancient coins appears to be based in Australia and his User ID even manages to sound a bit Aussie. But check his feedback and you find the guy is actually based in Belarus, or at any rate that's where his nasties are shipped from (see tip 5 below regarding exotic locations.) Another seller who caught my eye had a celtic-style tetradrachm of Philip III of Macedon and a tet of Leontini in Sicily, both in high grade. But when I checked his feedback I found he'd bought them recently from a seller in Germany who clearly lists his coins as repros. In re-selling the coins he omitted to mention that they were repros but he didn't say they were genuine either (thus preparing his fall-back position in the event of his buyers complaining.) He sold one coin for £51 and the other for £156, absurd sums for the genuine articles but not bad considering he'd paid the guy in Germany just £7.99 for each.

Another useful thing you can do whilst reviewing a seller's feedback is to check whether the seller has changed his user ID at some stage. Click onto "see all feedback" and you'll see in the top right hand corner a box with a number of options, click onto "other options" and you'll see "user ID history", click onto that and you'll see if the seller has previously used another ID. If so, this is a strong indication of a fraudulent seller who has been the subject of discussion on coin forgery discussion sites and whose eBay user ID has been place on a blacklist. Changing your user ID is a way of starting again with an untarnished reputation.

That's only the first bit of advice - the article covers 12 topics in all. Be sure to read the rest online. -Editor