How to spot fake and misleading holders

Risks of online bidding at Proxibid, HiBid.com, Live Auctioneers, eBay, and other venues keep rising — not only on raw coins, but also on holdered ones.

To bid successfully, you have to (a) be an expert grader, (b) see sharp and unaltered photographs, (c) trust seller descriptions, and (d) be able to spot misleading and fake holders.

That’s a lot to overcome. Add to this the plethora of “junk” coin auctions offering hundreds of worn wheat cents and nickels, silver-melt halves and dollars, and coins in off-brand and counterfeit holders. It’s becoming a waste of time.

I scour hundreds of coin auctions each week and bid low on lots in only a few.

Here are recent losing bids. More than 95% of my bids are losing ones, and for good reason. I know auction prices for similar coins and have strict rules, never bidding on lots with bad photography.

Look at my maximum bids compared to hammer prices, and you’ll see gross disparities.

Granted, I bid low on many of these lots. But rival bids are all excessively high. Case in point: The 1880-O Morgan, which the consignor lists as MS-63 worth $335 and which I put at AU-58 with possible altered cheek. Auction prices on PCGS CoinFacts show that a coin in this grade typically sells in a top holder for about $100. Someone paid double.

And then there are misleading holders that look like NGC, ICG, ANACS, or PCGS.

Here’s an example:

I bid on this coin before the auctioneer uploaded the photo — a big mistake on my part. I did so because I knew and trusted the seller. But often other employees fill out the descriptions. This wasn’t an MS-65 NGC Morgan. NGC coins may sell sight-unseen. This was an “NCG” holdered, overly dipped, cleaned, and almost Uncirculated details dollar.

I immediately complained that the description was wrong, and the auctioneer removed my bid. Some sellers won’t. You can see the removed bid in this photo:

If that is not bad enough, the market now has thousands of counterfeit coins in fake slabs. The major grading companies all have alerts on their website. Here’s one from NGC, which recommends buyers look up the certification number on the website, compare coins, holders, and labels to see if they match. NGC provides this illustration:

I always check the cert before bidding on a slabbed coin. But auctioneers love stickers, and often do this:

Whenever the cert is covered by a sticker, I do not bid.

In the end, bidding on raw coins and ones in off-brand holders adds more layers of risk in so-called estate auctions on Proxibid, HiBid, Live Auctioneers, etc. Out of the hundreds of auctions each week, I typically only bid now in half a dozen. I never bid retail (because this is supposed to be an auction) and always check certs and recent hammer prices on PCGS CoinFacts before placing my maximums.

If you find that too cumbersome, and it is, you might have better luck and save money bidding on Heritage, Great Collections, Stacks Bowers, and other reputable high volume prestigious houses.

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