Chinese Panda Coins - Are these illegal?

[dangelo]

Hi all,

Peter Francis Auctioneers LTD offering this lot with the misleading description (IMHO):

Quote

 

"A collection of Chinese panda coins in fitted case, together with another cased set of panda coins, 1 Kg coin and a Westminster cupronickel Queen's Golden Jubilee coins in case. (3)

Coins are not sliver and they do come with certificates."

 

I contacted them to advise the coins are fake (which took me some time digging  to figure out by looking up info on real Pandas).  Because a buyer could end up bidding a lot of money for this lot - it doesn't seem right to me.  Especially the wording - it says they are Chinese panda coins - which as we all know are supposed to be silver or gold.  It's also misleading because the last part says they are not silver - but that sounds like it applies to the cupronickel coins which are also in the lot.

Question is - is this legal? Surely not - because 1) they are countefeit and 2) the descrtiption doesn't say they are conterfeit. 

I'm surprised if this is legal and disapointed because if I was the unlucky newbie winning the lot, I'd be straight down the police station to file a report...

Or am I wrong?

BTW, the 1kg fake is apparently from US$0.50 to US$0.80 each on Alibaba depending how many are ordered and the lot's estimate is for £hundreds!

[heyimderrick]

I don't know if it is illegal, but it is a terrible business practice. Perpetuating the sale of replicas/counterfeits should be a blow to their reputation, and unfortunately things like this deter people from panda collecting. At the very least they should specific these as medals instead of coins since they aren't the actual government-minted editions. 

[greendragon]

auctioneers seem to be exempt from most consumer  laws including fakes and forgery issues

they sell out of date and dangerous goods too

a local auctioneer  had a pallet of out of date milk for sale!?