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Beware Fake Chinese Silver Coins of US States Sold on Ebay
On EBay, I recently purchased a "50% silver coin" featuring the state of Utah. The seller was Gongmart. The coin was beautiful, but I was surprised that it was shipped from China and would not have purchased it if I had known because China is a common source of fraudulent coins sold on EBay. I took the coin out of its protective plastic shell and listened to the sound it made. Balancing the coin on a finger tip and tapping the edge with another coin, one should hear a pleasant high-pitched ring that persists for a second or so if the coin is silver. There is a difference in sound between 40% silver coins and 90% silver coins, but they are both much different than copper clad coins, which do very little ringing and are more "dead" in their response. Tone depends on size, of course, but this large 1-ounce coin should have had a bright, clear, persistent tone if it was 50% silver. It was a dead clunk. I haven't weighed it yet, but it also feels too light to be silver. So I then chose to destroy my coin by scratching away some of the silver plating with a metal tool. A bright copper color was beneath - not a silver color like one sees in 40% silver coins. This is a lightly plated cheap metal coin, definitely not 50% silver.
If you have bought one of these, see for yourself if it's real or not, then complain to EBay and let others know.
If it's an expensive coin, make sure you can examine it carefully before you buy. Never buy a coin shipped from China!
For more information on fraudulent coins and how to detect them, see Silver-Coins.org. Also see About.com's "Six Steps to Detect a Fake Silver Coin."
Would be better to to compare by weight first before destroying the coin!
Even a fake will have some future value! Even after determing it it is too
light, one would still not need to utterly destroy the coin to glimpse what
might be under some thin plating. I would think something like a sharp pin
could be tapped in a more obscure area to make a very small gouge with
which to view under a microscope. The pros probaby have some very clever
ways of testing.