The Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation (ACEF) has released the following Press Release concerning recent scams found to attract buyers of counterfeit United States silver dollars. The rise in these scams has principally come from the steady rise of silver bullion in the market.
February 11, 2021 — The recent panic buying of silver bullion has sparked a significant increase in fraudulent or misleading online advertising to lure unsuspecting retail buyers to purchase counterfeit United States silver dollars, according to officials of the Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation (www.ACEFonline.org).
“The Chinese are blowing up the web selling fake silver dollars. We’ve seen suspicious ads posted on many platforms, including Amazon and Facebook,” cautioned Doug Davis, ACEF Anti-Counterfeiting Director.
“During the past couple of weeks, we received an increase in reports of counterfeits due to silver’s volatility and especially the ongoing interest in the Morgan silver dollars market. The Chinese are heavily marketing fake silver dollars via Facebook,” said Davis, a former Texas Police Chief.
“Remember, if you don’t know precious metals, you’d better know a reputable seller, such as experts affiliated with the Accredited Precious Metals Dealer program (www.APMDdealers.org),” advised Davis.
Morgan dollars are named after their designer, George T. Morgan, and were struck by the United States Mint from 1878 to 1904 and again in 1921. Popular with collectors and investors, each coin contains about three-fourths of an ounce of silver.
“The crush of retail customers has slowed down a bit, but we’ve definitely seen ‘panic buying’ of silver the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, some unsuspecting buyers are becoming victims of online scams by unscrupulous sellers,” said Richard Weaver, President of the Professional Numismatists Guild (www.PNGdealers.org).
“Supplies of genuine, century-old Morgan silver dollars are extremely tight, but one suspicious seller on Facebook is offering to sell 28 ‘genuine’ Morgan dollars for only $199. If they actually were genuine coins, the price would be closer to $900. Even the certification holders housing their fakes appear to be counterfeits,” explained Weaver.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation is alerting the Secret Service about the fakes as part of the foundation’s ongoing assistance to federal, state, and local law enforcement as well as prosecutors to fight counterfeiting and the sales of counterfeit coins.
Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (www.NGCcoin.com) is the official authentication service for the foundation and its Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force. NGC is the world’s largest third-party grading service for coins, tokens and medals, and is also the official grading service for the American Numismatic Association (www.money.org) and the Professional Numismatists Guild.
“The important work of the foundation and the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force is supported entirely by donations,” explained ACEF Executive Director Robert Brueggeman. “The ACEF is a 501(c)(3) corporation and all donations are tax deductible.”
For additional information, contact the Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation by phone at 817-723-7231, by email info@ACEFonline.org or visit the web site at www.ACEFonline.org.
Look up “Big Tree Coin Factory” to see how bad it’s getting. A few years ago I was at a flea market and a small dealer had a good looking raw trade dollar. A crowd was oohing over it. I took one look and knew “fake.” Couldn’t explain to my wife why it was, but have seen enough to know it was just subtly off. And there’s a lot of that around. You are right of course Clinton, if a deal sounds too good to be true it probably is. The best I can say is if what you want for your collection has any real value then buy slabbed coins from dealers in the ANA or PNG. And buy a book on coins before purchasing anything–knowledge may not be power, but it can avoid pitfalls.
100% agree on all points Richard. The problem now is that modern tech is making the counterfeits look so good that they are nearly impossible to detect in some cases. Books, courses from the ANA, ANS, and others to help spot them is critical. I personally wouldn’t buy a high value coin without it being NGC or PCGS at this point. Just too risky.