Fake Centenary Florins

[canberrafisher]

I have been looking at some of the Centenary Florins on here and comparing them with a site giving details on how to tell real ones from the fakes as far back as 2009.   Clearly if the advice on how to tell them is accurate..no reason to think it not..a number of current florins for sale here are fakes going for $hundreds when they are worthless. See http://www.australian-threepence.com/blog/2009/11/identifying-a-counterfeit-193435-centenary-florin....  
This is very concerning and I certainly will not buy one here. Except from a known  "expert" dealer who do not appear to have these fakes from what I have checked. 

[cq_tech]

The odds of finding a genuine rare coin on eBay are slim to none. The only source I'd even consider would be a specialist auction or a reputable coin dealer, and even then I'd want a money-back guarantee in writing.

[canberrafisher]

The above is only MY opinion of course based on the site advice linked.  It does not assume people knowingly are trying to sell a fake here as it is not so "clearly" obviously as previously mentioned and many variations appear in the listing pics /quality/ware etc as I finally got through them all and compared to the site pics.....
Also weight seems to be a key if the "how to tell site" is correct....I quote "  

"Weight

An uncirculated florin weighs 11.31g and the fake florin weighs 11.10g. Now 0.21g doesn't sound like a lot but you'd be surprised how little weight a coin loses as it wears. We weighed a mid grade (very fine) florin and the weight was 11.27g, so a worn coin with significant detail missing was just 0.04g lighter! Apparently the fake coin is made from something other than silver to show such a large weight difference."

Well that would be difficult online...anyway..... 

[kopenhagen5]

fisher, you make a good point.

For the genuine sellers they will take the time to put in the weight in their listings and then for the buyer should the weight not match the description has 45 days to open the claim if paid by PayPal.

To have that as option specific may be a good suggestion to ebay.

As you say, purchasing from reputable dealers on ebay is the best way of avoiding problems.

Their grading is also going to be far more acurate.

[jumpydj]

Found a seller tonight who has sold 15 fake 1934/35 Centenary Florins so far and has another three selling currently. These are easy to pick chinese fakes as the top of the P & O on the word 'EMPEROR' have a crack or fault in the striking and have been selling for upto $800+ which makes me so mad as ebay are letting these theives get away with this rubbish.

I don't know if ebay lets us expose these ripoff merchants in these forums as I would like to warn others as to who these people are?

[kopenhagen5]

eBay can't vet or police millions of listings. And they don't allow naming n shaming on the forums.

But you can post an item number for us to see if we think it is fake or not. 

[siddieswans]

I am sure from what you have already posted that anyone reading these exchanges could pinpoint the items you are concerned about. And although as regards coins "I (wouldn't) know a hawk from a handsaw" even I can see that all those 10+ coins sold in the last 2 months have exactly the same fault as you described - and really, they look nowhere near as good as the other similar coins which I assume are correct. Makes you wonder what people who are buying them are thinking  - or are those sales for real??? It would seem that in the last couple of days the sales of the 1934/35 Centenary Florins has been changed to a private listing - so that bidders' ID are not shown. Hmmm.

[jumpydj]

Hey all,

Have found a zero feedback seller that has several 1934/35 centenary florins, 1938 crowns and other florins that are all fakes and has just used the same photo for multi listings. Have reported most of them as copies/fakes but not holding my breath for ebay to remove them. Going to see another batch of uneducated buyers throwing away their harned earned on **bleep**.

I don't know how some people sleep at night?

[go-tazz]

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@siddieswans wrote:

 It would seem that in the last couple of days the sales of the 1934/35 Centenary Florins has been changed to a private listing - so that bidders' ID are not shown. Hmmm.

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It's what scammers tend to do when they know that they'll start receiving negative feedback from a high number

of buyers,(it allows them to keep the scam going if buyers don't look at the feedback percentage),

[collect247]

Not really, you need to mention on these boards and hopefully some will read the posts that there are tests that you can do to find out if they are fake and I'm sure that the buyers of these coins would be in the know about these coins otherwise why bother buying them.

And if you test them and find out they are fake then you open an INAD.

There is one particular seller that actually states these coins are just tokens and you would think that a buyer knows what token means?