Are coins and stamps as bad as baseball cards and autographs?

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Posted By: Richard Simon

Bogus autographs, bogus auctions, bogus cards, bogus holders, shill bidding, FBI investigations.
Do the coin and stamp hobbies have this kind of problem or are the sports collectors the lucky ones.
=

I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

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Posted By: Steve

Richard



I do not know about stamps but yes the coin hobby has its share of

problems too.



fakes from china, unscrupulous dealers that when selling a coin is mint

when buying it is not. Fake auctions, fake PCGS slabs are making the rounds too.



I date many of the problems the card hobby has to when the coin guys got

involved.



The problems we see everyday in the card/autograph hobby we see them too

in the coin hobby.



I'm sure stamps has its share of problems too.





Steve

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Posted By: Mark Macrae

Richard...The sports hobby is no different than several other hobbies that have crossed the magic barrier. Once an inexpensive and fun hobby turns into a 'big money' game, all bets are off. Coins, Stamps, Art, Classic American Furniture, Breweriana, Vintage Automobiles,etc..... all have similar problems. In many cases the victims are similar ...less knowledgable on the subject, anxious to build a great collection quickly, deep pocketed, trusting of published information by questionable subjects, and seem to be attracted to the same types of flashy, disreputable dealers (in various fields). The best advice you can take is spend your time before you spend your money and buy what you like. If you are buying for investment only, and intend on owning the item for less than five years, you will probably lose money (Hey, just like California Real Estate !!!)

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Posted By: Fred C

Hey Mark, you should enter that definition into an encyclopedia under the topic "modern collectibles". NAILED!

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I know little about the stamp hobby, but do know there are fakes, forgeries and nefarious restorations. Parallel to the earlier thread about overstamped baseball cards, there have been fake overstamps on stamps. One thing about stamps is they were issued and printed by the government, so it may be easier to figure out what meets standards and what is amiss. There were no Mom & Pop clothiers or obscure tobacco companies issuing their own postage stamps.

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Posted By: DJ

There is no question that the world of autographs of all the collectibles has the most issues in regards to authenticity. It is something that cannot be verified to exist and that's the popularity from the front of the fraudster. You deal and collect in a collecting genre that has an authenticity percentage that is in some cases barely double digits. There is no way (okay, small percentage), regardless of who says so, that the Babe signed that item. It could very much be the work of a master forger.

I chatted several years ago with other collectible experts with the same question and there are issues in anything where money could be made. It's simply a lot easier to unlevel a playing field and play outsisde the rules, but with other collectibles like Comic Books, Card and Coins, it's not so much about the item being downright fraudulent (as compared to the world of scribbles where you can expect a dollar amount based on the work one does on a blank scrap of old paper), but tampered with or authenticating companies simply giving an incorrect opinion.

When I chatted with a CGC (comic books) guy, he noted that of many of the Silver and Golden age comics that are highest in demand (Spiderman, Superman, Action Comics, Detective Comics, X-Men, FF etc.), that between 1 and 3 out of every five had some work done to restore it that the original seller did not specify.

I talked to one gentlemen who told me a tale of a collector who was in desparate need of a rare coin in a specific grade. It was at the third highest grade (valued at $8,000) and he wanted a second highest grade ($24,000). So what he did was take a hammer to the holder and he simply kept resubmitting the coin hoping for the higher grade. He did this like fifty times before he finally got that higher grade. He had turned that $8,000 coin into a $24,000 and paid about fifty submissions which was well worth it to the now satisfied customer.

Happy Holidays!

DJ

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Posted By: LetsGoBucs

In terms of stamps I agree with the previous post about stamps.

There are issues. Re-gumming was a problem in the 70's, but its pretty easy to spot. There have been attempts at forgeries. There have been alterations being done and not mentioned. But there is a stamp association that has done a lot to handle and shed light on these problems.

I'm not involved in stamps really anymore and I do know that now things are being graded just like in baseball cards. We'll see what kind of effect that has. Most collectors would use the associations authentication services but there previously wasn't the 10, 9, 8 type grading being done.

I'd say that the stamp market is somewhat similar to the art market - its international in scope and has been around for a long long time.

My own opinion is that the stamp market is "cleaner" than the art market or the baseball card market. I can't really comment on coins.

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Posted By: Greg Theberge

Mark mentioned breweriana.

Fortunately, what reproductions do exist are, so far, fairly easy to distinguish. Ebay still allows the sale of this crap on the market as long as it is clearly stated that it is a reproduction, although not specifically marked as such.

Funny thing that this came up as I'm awaiting the arrival of a rare piece that I will have to evaluate when it comes in as it's one of those pieces that makes you think a bit about it's originality. Chance are likely that it is, but there's always that thought in the back of your mind that it might not be...

The good thing for us breweriana collectors is that, as a group, we have zero interest in having some third party telling us the quality of a piece by sticking it in some crazy piece of plastic which obviously jacks the price up. We also don't see the sense of a fairly common item being priced ridiculously high just because it has the slightest better grade than one of it's many counterparts. We're also fortunate, so far, that the "demand" for our stuff isn't the same as that of baseball cards. Rare and elusive in our world is where only ONE item of the example is known to exist, not sixty that are priced in the hundreds of thousands and multiple millions.

That's not to say that this hobby is inexpensive...trust me, just ask my wife.

Greg

www.rhodeislandbreweryhistory.com

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Posted By: Richard Simon

To quote "DJ": "I talked to one gentlemen who told me a tale of a collector who was in desparate need of a rare coin in a specific grade. It was at the third highest grade (valued at $8,000) and he wanted a second highest grade ($24,000). So what he did was take a hammer to the holder and he simply kept resubmitting the coin hoping for the higher grade. He did this like fifty times before he finally got that higher grade. He had turned that $8,000 coin into a $24,000 and paid about fifty submissions which was well worth it to the now satisfied customer".

I was told the exact same story, by a major executive in a major grading company. His company was the one being used for this submission.
The collector said to him "well your guys finally got it right", his reply was, "no we got it right the first 49 times."
==


I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

[Archive]

Posted By: Jason

I don't even have to know about those hobbies to say that if there is money involved then you will have dishonest people trying to scam you out of it.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Two of my specialties are photographs and prints by famous artists.

There are forgered and tricked photographs, but most problems are misidentifications-- ala mistaking a reprint for an original, misdating, etc.

In fine are prints (ala Renoir etching, Chagal lithograph), there are lots of forgeries. Luckily, as an area of academic interest, lots have been written about the works of famous artists. A collector can find good books to help them in determining what is considered genuine and what is not. If a collector is considering buying a Salvador Dali print, he can look it up in a book to make sure that its considered a genuine Dali and that the physical details are in alignment (size, numbering, watermark, etc). Most forged Dalis aren't reprints or counterfeits, but fantasy items-- meaning Dali never created the image design. They are on the the order of a a 1956 Bowman Mickey Mantle-- if a beginner refers to his trusty Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, he can see that there is no 1956 Bowman set. And a beginning art collector can refer to the Dali catalog reasonne (as the catalog of of an artist's work is called) and see that the fantasy Dali isn't listed. The collector will want to deal with reputable sellers, check provenance, get outside opinions and take care, but using the catalogues raisonne can make even the beginner more confident in what they are doing. These are the same books that Sotheby's, Christies and the Louvre refer to. As many catalogues raisonne picture all of an artist's work in full color and in chronological order, the books can work as coffee table books. Non-collectors and art enthusiasts can enjoy them.