quote Dear Newsmax Reader: Please find below a special message from our sponsor, Gary Hendershott. He has some important information to share with you. Thank you. Newsmax.com As a collector I thought you would find this article below to be both informative and helpful. If you study the different Coin-Fraud lawsuits, they all lead to the same ongoing systematic fraud of selling over-graded and repaired coins to unknowing collectors and investors. This has been a type of Financial Fraud that began in the 1980's when coins were 1st slabbed which is strictly an American Phenomenon, as European collectors will not buy a coin that is encapsulated. I am currently writing a book about this and other examples of fraud in collectibles. If you would like to include any of your experiences in this reference book titled "Fakes & Scoundrels" I would appreciate hearing from you, and if you have ever had to get your money back from a auction company you might want to Click & Read about my lawsuit against Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas. http://www.hvsh.info/ The ultimate Fraud in collectibles, Coin Fraud has escalated to a point that the general public is at risk. It all began in the 1980’s when the owners of Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas developed a scheme of grading a coin, then encapsulating it inside a plastic holder called a Slab. Once inside this sealed plastic holder the coin cannot be removed and authenticated as being in original condition as issued by the United States Treasury. Many of these “Slabbed” coins are in fact damaged and repaired coins, cleaned and baked, buffed and lasered to create a false patina to increase their value based on this fraudulent scheme. No one can tell – unless they break it out of this plastic holder. Catch 22, if you take the coin out of the plastic holder and find that it has been enhanced they will simply refuse to refund your money because it is no longer in its holder. Thus creating the perfect Con –this 1913 Olsen Nickel is a perfect example, not only is the coin “Enhanced” to drive up its value artificially; as it went from a Lower Grade XF to a higher grade MS 63 then magically and recently became the ultimate NGC grade Mint State 64 – Proof, falsely increasing its value by Millions of Dollars. FAKED transactions are also commonplace as the auction drives up the coin market, in hopes of selling to an unknowing investor. The auction house has a system in place to track who looks at what coin and how many times and for how long. When you sign up to bid they already know which coins you are interested in, and they have also profiled your wealth for the purpose of bidding you up! Basically, you don’t stand a Chance – during the most recent auction the auction house employee’s bought and bid on most of the expensive coins including this 1913 Olsen Nickel which was bought by a Heritage employee for $3.7 million dollars. This 1913 Nickel enjoys the same grading history as the famous 1804 Dollar which also began life as a XF coin, then became a NGC high graded MS 61, but now it is also another magical Mint State 64 – Proof. Coin Con-Artists have been slabbing and selling over valued and damaged coins as perfect coins to unsuspecting investors ala Madoff, getting away with Grand-Theft on a scale unheard of in the world of collectibles. A Billion Dollar scam – Buyer Beware – Federal RICO charges are pending. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik..._Liberty_Head_nickel

Any collectable item is suseptable to fraud. I had pounds of old silver coins..(my mother was a "coin collector") but most of them were "junk silver" ie coins that had been in circulation. I had put several $10 face value coin collections on ebay with Morgan dollars, standing liberty half dollars, Eisenhower dollars Franklin half dollars Barber quarters, Mercury dimes etc. Junk silver was selling @$17/troy oz a few years back so a Morgan dollar's silver value was ~$17+ just for the silver. There was $30-$40 in silver in the collection not considering the numismatic value of the coins. Trying to grade the coins is quite difficult, but most all the Morgan dollars were worth 2X the silver value. Few sales were made. I ended up selling them in bulk to a "coin collector" for the junk silver value who could resell them for whatever. I made more than $8000 for the bulk coins keeping just a few of the real nice Morgan dollars.

I had taken coins to a friend years before who was a collector, mostly gold coins, and he had a "dip" that would make tarnished silver coins glisten, but according to him many collectors wanted high quality coins that did show some tarnish do to age and not overly shiny or "dipped". The tricks of the trade.