UNFORTUNATELY–CHINA COUNTERFEITING IS GROWING EXPONENTIALLY
The following is reprinted in its entirety from The Historybank customer newsletter that was published June 22, 2025. We have made minor edits where necessary, where the context of another article in the newsletter may not be clear. Our policy for The World’s Columbian Journal is only to publish articles that directly involve the World’s Columbian Exposition in one or more areas, including but not limited to Expo history, collectibles, medals, tickets, souvenirs and so on. Chinese counterfeit U.S. silver dollars have been around for many years; only in the last few weeks have these Chinese counterfeiters branched out producing U.S. commemorative half dollars with many different ones appearing on ebay. While I have not seen a counterfeit Columbian half dollar, it seems inevitable that one will show up soon. These counterfeit coins have blossomed on ebay like weeds in Spring. I recently saw not only the “CC” dollars cited in the following article, but 1909 S Lincoln cents along with most recently an Oregon Trail commem. You will note a few sentences in italics and in parenthese; thes are comments I have added for this article.
One very concerning aspect of this is that identical fake coins have been on sale on ebay from many different sellers; they all have extremely low feedback of anywhere from 1 or 2 up to 20; they are also sllers with unique seller identities, and the coins being sold are identical from one seller to the next.
Chinese Counterfeit Coins are Rampant on ebay
And besides NOT being fun selling on ebay there are so many issues to deal with. The fees are difficult, but it has gotten ridiculous not just for those of us who sell. I understand too well the many issues for collectors as well.
China counterfeit coins found their way to ebay occasionally….until recently. Assuming one is to believe listings that note a rare coin as “5 available, 29 sold” then this really is a major issue that ebay simply ignores.
I believe the (reference to the ) number sold is something generated automatically by ebay; it has been in every case I’ve seen. Where I have listed one of my WCE books for sale with “10 in stock” I have had ebay post the new totals for number sold and number remaining each time one sells.
In the last few days I have seen literally dozens of listings for U.S. silver dollars and an entire range of commemorative half dollars.
Until recently buyers and sellers on ebay ran into fake coins enough to find them annoying, but not a big problem. If you do a search for BU “CC” dollars that typically sell for thousands of dollars, you will find well over half the items that come up (in an ebay search) priced in the area of $29.99….with dozens noted as sold.
Virtually all of the sellers are based in China (I saw one which claimed to be a U.S. seller) and have very low feedback scores—often no more than 4 or 5! They’re all starting to rack up the negative feedbacks from collectors who realize they were duped into buying fake coins. What collector would believe that BU Carson City dollars would ever sell for $30?
The people buying them obviously don’t know a great deal—or they see a way to make a quick buck reselling these coins. I would like to think that the vast majority of coin dealers and other sellers on ebay are not so blatantly dishonest. About six months ago I found a counterfeit dollar in a roll of Morgans I had purchased several years earlier but only looked at the coins very briefly when I purchased it. (The fake) was passable at a quick look, but the weight was way off and the eye test wasn’t difficult. Now the ones I’ve seen on ebay this month look even better. Some of the Chinese sellers have listed U.S. addresses from which the coins are shipped without claiming to be U.S. firms, but they can’t hide their minimal feedback—and growing number of negatives. Today I saw one of these sellers listed with 100% positive feedback noted as “one of ebay’s best sellers.” They had a total of FIVE positive feedbacks.
How Do We Get Hurt by Counterfeits if If We’re Smart Enough Never To Buy Them?
We will unknowingly at some point get stuck with a counterfeit. Perhaps it will be a U.S. silver dollar (devoid of silver of course) that finds its way into some bulk purchase.
Hopefully it will never come with a several-thousand-dollar price tag.
I’m afraid that novice—and even not-so-inexperienced—collectors will think they made a heck of a buy. They won’t find out until they try to sell their collection—next year or in twenty years. And if they collect slabbed coins they’ll find out much quicker when they submit it to be graded.
But ebay is doing absolutely nothing to stop the flood of counterfeits. They sure can jump in quickly if a buyer and seller happen to message each other about an off-ebay transaction.
Ebay spends a lot time and advertising dollars touting the site as safe and an excellent place to shop without worrying about being duped. (They ridiculously suggest that ebay users “LOVE” the site; I have never heard anyone–buyer or seller–say they loved doing business on ebay; have you?)
Ebay claims to have experts on staff to monitor the site specifically for items that are not allowed; I would think counterfeit coins would fall under that heading.
I’ve also come to accept that ebay has no one reading negative feedbacks. If they were doing their job they would remove these dozens upon dozens of China-based sellers flooding the market with counterfeits. I know that many buyers and sellers review ebay feedback when they are dealing with an unknown person.( I certainly do.)
An item caught my eye recently on ebay. It looked to be underpriced and was listed by a seller with more than 25,000 feedbacks.
I scanned the seller’s other listings and their feedbacks and I was surprised not just that they had A LOT of negative feedbacks (but their percentage of them was low because of their volume of sales), (They’re feedback was not great but certainly not instantly seen as horrible; I think it was about 98% positive.) but I was shocked at their responses to EVERY SINGLE NEGATIVE. They were vile and called each of those customers a string of names, using language that I thought wasn’t allowed on ebay: “brain dead, liars, idiots, morons” are some of the names I’m comfortable printing. But virtually every comment they made included disgusting language that has no place….anywhere, including sexist language.
I know that ebay has algorithms to find violations. I recently used the term “ass” in a listing. I believe I said something was a “pain in the ass.” I don’t recall the exact usage, but ebay blocked my listing and sent me an automated message that “language in (my) listing might be considered offensive by some ebay members” and told me to change it. No problem.
I’m definitely not a prude and I swear more often than I should, but my jaw dropped at the seller’s comments when he received negative feedback. It wasn’t a word or two, but rather a string of expletives and outrageous name calling to those who dared to leave him negative feedback.
And ebay does nothing. I’m not a gung-ho person who wants to call out every inappropriate listing or seller, but it is so unprofessional on ebay’s part and it flies in the face of their own rules and claims that ebay isn’t just looking out for every user’s welfare, they want us all to “love our experience” buying (and I think selling). Perhaps if enough of us contact ebay they will remove these dozens of Chinese sellers of counterfeit coins. Time is always an issue, but I thought if I drafted a letter to ebay and could get say 100-200 sellers to sign it maybe ebay would act. I also suspect many sellers might prefer NOT to do this for fear of retaliation by ebay. It’s a good idea but I’m not sure how I will proceed.
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This ends the reprint: I decided not to list the Chinese sellers who were advertising counterfeit coins, nor the U.S. seller to whom I referred above. Please contact me if you would like me to provide the sellers’ names/identities. I should also point out that in the past one could find small flaws in the counterfeit coins by looking carefully at the listings. I think the current CC Morgan dollars looked pretty darned close to perfect. I was surprised in the past that the counterfeit coin I found in the roll “looked” immediately “wrong.” And the weight was clearly off. The latter surprised me as I would think counterfeiter that could produce such quality could also ensure their coins were the proper weight.
Besides being disgusted with ebay completely ignoring the counterfeiting and the incredibly foul;-mouthed seller….I was also still shocked they simply ignored all of these examples.
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