By Jack D. Young
It’s bad enough there are so many counterfeits in the marketplace but now you have to be on the lookout for stolen and/or photoshopped images as well–basically, these are “virtual counterfeits”!
The bad 1928 Peace dollars continue to hit listings, with my previous Proxiblog article on these published this past week. One of the sellers using photoshopped images for a 1928-S listing had these three listed in her selling history:
3 Past eBay listings of PCGS Gold Buffalos
A friend who helps me report bad eBay listings for removal often talks about “fake sales”–sales shown to make the seller appear more successful or “trustworthy” than they may actually be. These can be done by friends and/or the same seller under a different seller ID. Often the same item shown sold then shows “relisted.”…
So, starting with the 2017, it shows sold twice but with a relist, so who knows? May have been the only bid the 1st time. Images used originally came from the Heritage auction listed on the PCGS online cert.
PCGS online cert; no TrueView image but lists auction appearance
The Bay seller’s 2nd listing used the same images as well; no way to know what actually sold, as the seller stated she was “selling them for a friend.”…
Some additional searching found an AliExpress example for sale:
AliExpress listing for the 2017 Buff using Heritages auction images
Both “sellers” are using Heritage’s images without authorization, and I did notify my contact there. Ali description is clearly not of a genuine coin, so again who knows what one is buying!
And then the 2018; this one just looks bad! I would guess the Bay lister photoshopped a genuine coin into the bad slab/ label. The reverse image used is of the previous Heritage 2017 example!
eBay listed “2018 PCGS” gold Buff; same reverse as “2017” above
The PCGS online cert has an image of the genuine coin but not one in the slab; it certainly doesn’t look like this one. …
PCGS on-line cert and TrueView image
Comparison image of the Bay listed example obverse to the genuine example from the PCGS cert shows the Bay example image is not a good choice:
Bad Bay example on the left, genuine example on the right
And I also found the Ali offering for this one!
AliExpress listing for the 2018 Buff using their images
Looks like the AliExpress 2018 Buff is the only listed example here that a buyer would actually receive. …
I did check the seller’s feedback and she had received 1 for the three “sold” Buffs:
Seller Feedback for the “2018” gold buffalo listing
I was curious about the note “verified purchase” and looked it up. Per eBay, “We’ve added this text to remove any doubt that the person leaving the feedback was involved in the transaction.”
Wow! The coin imaged in the positive feedback doesn’t look anything like the seller’s listing image, so “verified” obviously didn’t mean what I initially thought!
eBay feedback image of the coin received?
Love the little dog, the “coin” not so much, as I have seen a number of fakes like this in fake NGC holders. Image isn’t clear enough to check the cert, but clear enough to see it isn’t the PCGS one!
It is getting harder to keep up with all the ways scammers and the like are challenging collectors and the Hobby.
Note: To read more Jack D. Young Reports, go to the archive tab on Proxiblog.
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