By Jack D. Young
As if the Chinese counterfeit coins in fake PCGS slabs isn’t bad enough, now there appears to be a fake Chinese PCGS website to verify them.
A friend alerted me to the following listing on the Bay:
Past eBay listed counterfeit in a counterfeit not-PCGS slab:
The listing included these interesting other images:
Images from the seller’s listing
The seller had ended the listing based on being told it is a counterfeit, and I started a review to try to determine what was going on here!
So, I started with the “PCGS” slab and some quick checks. Using my on-line barcode scanner I checked the front barcode:
Like many similar bad slabs, the barcode was gibberish and would not scan. Next, I went to the PCGS website to check the noted cert number:
Note from the genuine PCGS site for the cert # look-up
And another bad sign, that cert # “was not found”. So, my next step was to try to read the reverse label QR code. And just a note, many of the previous counterfeits we have documented similar to this one had a QR code that read the cert # correctly but noted the genuine PCGS CN site. A previous example read like this:
Typical previous QR code to pcgs.cn site
And then this one:
Note different website for this cert!
Different result than expected! I do NOT recommend readers going to the site shown, but if you did, this is what comes up:
Fake “PCGS” site, image
WOW, now we have something apparently new to be concerned about with these.
I did notify my contacts at PCGS for a heads-up as well as post it on their CU Forum:
The Trifecta, CN Counterfeit Coin, Slab and Website ! — Collectors Universe
My contacts at PCGS acknowledged they were now aware and reviewing; a check of the fake site Christmas evening indicated it was now unavailable– a nice Christmas present if it lasts…
I did continue to dig a bit and found the following domain information; seemed ironic the “Registrar” has Alibaba in the name!
The best way to guard against buying a counterfeit coin is to purchase an authentic one from a reputable dealer. Barring that, view Jack Young’s Jack Riley’s and my articles on counterfeit coins published by Proxiblog.
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