Coin of the Realm

I was talking with an acquaintance last week when he pulled out a coin for me to look at. It was a U.S. coin dated 1785, a well worn but still beautiful specimen. He told me he found it at the Gold Market in Shanghai - a place I had not heard of. "How much did you pay for it," I asked. "US$1,000", he said. "And I paid US$1,000 each for two others. Only problem is, they are fakes." He then explained that he had taken them back to the US, thinking they were genuine, and was offered US$5,000 each by a collector - if he had them graded by a professional coin inspector. The grader then gave him the bad news, they were all counterfeits. It had cost him $400 for the grading so, all told, he was out $3,400 and some unscrupulous coin dealer in Shanghai's Gold Market had made a tidy profit.

To my untrained eye, the coin looked genuine. When I was younger, I collected rare coins and enjoyed visiting the coin and stamp stores looking for interesting finds from around the world. But with Chinese counterfeits of almost any valuable product - including old U.S. coins, flooding the world these days, I'd have to think twice before paying much for a coin. It would be interesting to know to what degree conterfeits are to be found in coin shops in the U.S.? According to this website fake US silver dollars from China are common - especially on e-Bay.