What is the point in this type of ‘gold’?

[Foster88]

The title speaks for itself, what is the point in selling or moreso, even buying these?

The above is most likely a rehetorical question but I cannot see the purpose of these

I came across these on a well known auction site.

Restrikes? More like fake sovereigns at best, forgeries at worst. The latter being the most likely.

Apologies if I’m ignorant here but I just don’t see the point in them, maybe I’m missing something.

Who would anyone buy these and why?

I can see how some new collectors or stackers could be fooled by these.

These are awful ffs. 🙄

[sixgun]

The QEII young head in particular is a rough dog but the unwary and unknowledgable could be hoodwinked.
i can only think these were meant to be passed off as the genuine article. 

[Prophecy]

well, they are for sale really cheap and clearly labelled as gold plated. However, I honestly do not know why the government allow 'jewellers copies' of sovereigns considering they're still legal tender especially if they have no intrinsic bullion value. Imagine if someone started making jewellers copies of £1 coins, they'd be shut down in a second.

[Foster88]

17 minutes ago, sixgun said:

The QEII young head in particular is a rough dog but the unwary and unknowledgable could be hoodwinked.
i can only think these we meant to be passed off as the genuine article. 

Exactly, they’re forgeries at best.

At worst, well who knows.

[Foster88]

12 minutes ago, Prophecy said:

well, they are for sale really cheap and clearly labelled as gold plated. However, I honestly do not know why the government allow 'jewellers copies' of sovereigns considering they're still legal tender especially if they have no intrinsic bullion value. Imagine if someone started making jewellers copies of £1 coins, they'd be shut down in a second.

Its most likely swept under the carpet because they haven’t been in circulation since 1914.

It still doesn’t make it right but if someone were to buy one of these say now and someone was left grandmas or grandads assets in 2040 for example and these ended up on eBay....

It would be like (no offence intended) but it is like the blind leading the blind.

Thats how easy fake sovereigns, because that’s what they are, get into ‘circulation’.

Apologies, that comment wasn’t exactly PC.

[Prophecy]

32 minutes ago, Foster88 said:

Apologies, that comment wasn’t exactly PC.

PM comments are more valuable than PC ones. PMs aren't PC.

[Pohaku]

In a similar vein, the bars that are stamped as '10 ounces .999 fine gold' with the Credit Suisse pattern, but are described by the seller as 'gold-plated' and priced low. I always report these on the sites as counterfeit, because regardless of the seller's description if the damn thing has '10 ounces .999 fine gold' stamped on it and it isn't then it's a forgery/fake/fraud/counterfeit and designed to rip people off.

[Dragonnumis]

@Foster88 I noticed these too on bay. The worrying thing is that the seller has over 2.5 thousand 100% feedback 😩 so imagine how many of these are about.

[badar]

10 minutes ago, Pohaku said:

In a similar vein, the bars that are stamped as '10 ounces .999 fine gold' with the Credit Suisse pattern, but are described by the seller as 'gold-plated' and priced low. I always report these on the sites as counterfeit, because regardless of the seller's description if the damn thing has '10 ounces .999 fine gold' stamped on it and it isn't then it's a forgery/fake/fraud/counterfeit and designed to rip people off.

You can report all you want, eBay wouldn’t do anything. The only time they’ll remove something is when a company complains about intellectual property infringement etc. 
 

Otherwise these sales make eBay so much money; they’re happy to turn a blind eye to things like these. They used to be better back in the day though.

[Goldhooked]

57 minutes ago, badar said:

The only time they’ll remove something is when a company complains about intellectual property infringement etc.

As the owner of a trademark I can tell you even that’s not easy with eBay.  I’m sure big brands with expensive lawyers find it easier though.

[Prophecy]

2 hours ago, Goldhooked said:

As the owner of a trademark I can tell you even that’s not easy with eBay.  I’m sure big brands with expensive lawyers find it easier though.

eBay are getting to be almost as bad as Alibaba/Aliexpress for forgeries

[Foster88]

I sent one of them a polite message to ask why they were selling fakes. 

This was the reply.

The furniture they are referring to is an antique Victorian sideboard I have listed on eBay that I bought from an antiques auction. It’s nice that they went to the trouble to see what I was selling. 😂

 

 

[GoldElliott]

I completely agree.

There are so many fake ones on ebay and this guy (and his 10s of different accounts) post a selection of real but worthless coins in a tin with one high value coin (a restrike of course) and make it look like its there by mistake- essentially very staged. In the description he does descibe it as a restrike however the bidding pattern on his items indicates very clearly that he is shill bidding, presumably waiting for someone genuine to put in a proper bid at which point he stops and sells it to them for the rip off price. Commonly its just two accounts bidding against each other, but a lot of the time its just 1 bidding against itself.

quite upsetting really... how many unknowing collectors have these 'stunning restrikes' in their collections and passing them down to their grand kids thinking theyre real and paying a fortune for them!!

[Notafront4adragon]

There's no laws saying you can't take idiots money. 

It may sound a bit harsh, but if you're gonna buy something, especially something expensive, you should do your research. I do find accounts like this ones highly annoying, and tbf it is clearly described, so it would be on me if I was foolish enough to bid any price. 

 

[Prophecy]

43 minutes ago, Foster88 said:

I sent one of them a polite message to ask why they were selling fakes. 

This was the reply.

The furniture they are referring to is an antique Victorian sideboard I have listed on eBay that I bought from an antiques auction. It’s nice that they went to the trouble to see what I was selling. 😂

 

 

Can you ask him when he thinks furniture was used as legal tender or bullion?

[GoldElliott]

3 minutes ago, Notafront4adragon said:

There's no laws saying you can't take idiots money. 

It may sound a bit harsh, but if you're gonna buy something, especially something expensive, you should do your research. I do find accounts like this ones highly annoying, and tbf it is clearly described, so it would be on me if I was foolish enough to bid any price. 

 

There are various laws prohibiting the selling of counterfeit goods and strict laws on selling counterfeit coins, however you're right as long as it is clearly described as a restrike etc they're probably not breaking any laws- presuming the coin has some marking of the word copy or something on it.

It is ebay who should step in really. They need to have it as a seperate category e.g. restrikes/ replica coins so as not to come up in regular searches or should make it mandatory to have the word copy or fake in the title and not buried in the description (as I search thousands of ebay listings a day it really annoys me when they hide it).

It undermines people's trust in ebay and just reinforces the image of everything being Chinese fakes on ebay.

[Notafront4adragon]

If anything it's good for TSF the more genuine people eBay annoy the more alternative platforms will exist. 

[Chorlton]

Buying anything PM off EBAY is a risk, with the exception of real coin dealers who just happen to put things on EBAY. The photo’s could easily be different to what is actually being sold and if you are buying based on more than spot PM prices you are taking a bigger risk. That being said I have bought 3 coins from EBAY two were in excellent condition at a good but not cheap price looking like they had simply been bought and left in a cupboard, and the third was OK for the price but the condition issues were not apparent until I actually checked it over.

[motorbikez]

I've given up reporting s--t/fake/  counterfit coins on ebay  occasionally they take stuff down but most times they don't. I've even seen stuff taken down,then a week later it's back up again.

 

[OriginalS]

eBay really doesn't give a c**p about posts, I reported an American gold eagle that was clearly fake several times along with other people and it still sold for $1800 I just hope the poor sod got his money back, I even messaged the seller and didn't get a reply so he clearly knew it was fake, at this point I wouldn't go near eBay to buy any sort of bullion

[Metalisreal]

51 minutes ago, OriginalS said:

eBay really doesn't give a c**p about posts, I reported an American gold eagle that was clearly fake several times along with other people and it still sold for $1800 I just hope the poor sod got his money back, I even messaged the seller and didn't get a reply so he clearly knew it was fake, at this point I wouldn't go near eBay to buy any sort of bullion

I make it a habit never to buy gold/silver from a private seller on eBay.  Always from a well-known and trusted coin shop or APMEX, MCM and the like, even if I have to pay a little more. Worth it for peace of mind.

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

If you want a potential suggestion for these apart from ripping folks off...  I've always thought it could be useful to get a bunch of these as well as other fakes and a cheap safe to use as a decoy. Properly hide the actual good stuff and leave the duds and the cheap safe somewhere they could be fairly easily discovered.

Like many others in this thread though I've seen these fakes being sold as genuine many times especially on ebay. I gave up reporting them because as others have said ebay doesn't care. At this point I just accept it as one of the perils out there for those new in to the world of coins. I'll put these up there with most of the bullshit places like Westminster Collection sell or even those absurd "emergency" silver eagles that are doing the rounds atm. There are many pitfalls and opportunities to be ripped off in the pm world.

[sovereignsteve]

46 minutes ago, AppleZippoandMetronome said:

I've always thought it could be useful to get a bunch of these as well as other fakes and a cheap safe to use as a decoy. Properly hide the actual good stuff and leave the duds and the cheap safe somewhere they could be fairly easily discovered

It is one theory that's talked about. The problem with it being the thief will discover your ruse soon enough and then come back as mad as hell.

[Melon]

Been considering one of those sigma metalytics machines lately, the older (=cheaper) version... posts like this make me want to buy it all the more... so much fake c**p out there.