Technology has advanced, there will be more and more counterfeit coins,
Silver coins were among the first coins ever used, thousands of years ago. The silver standard was used for centuries in many places of the world. And the use of silver for coins, instead of other materials, has many reasons.
This is distressing in many ways.
These quality fakes have been on the market for at least six years. Dealers and advanced collectors alike are falling for them readily. (It would be interesting to see if the top slabbing companies have seen any, and how they fared?)
The idea of geographic shaming or quarantine is petty and as admitted in the article very likely to be ineffective.
Thank you, for linking me to this article.
Absolutely terrifying. If nothing is done about the counterfeiting problem, it’s not inconceivable to think of a world where there are more fakes on the market than the real thing...
Part of the appeal of English hammered coins to me has been that I thought that the fakes are quite easy to spot, especially when you have the coins in hand. There have been a few followup articles on other convincing forgeries.
