cuzcosquirrel said:
That would be the guys selling the fakes on ebay.
I meant it in regards to the first part of that, that as compared to the Chinese faking of U.S. coins, (Asian) production of fake cobs isn't a priority... If you want to stretch it out from solely cobs to a wider Spanish coinage field which includes pillar 8 Reales, it's DEFINITELY a priority. Basically EVERYTHING that China has some familiarity with from their history is now getting a noticeable amount of the Madame Tussaud's treatment - Pillar 8R (tons), also cobs, portrait 8R British trade dollars, French Indochina piastres, plus anything big, silver, and Chinese (ranging from your basic Fat Man and Junk dollars up into rarer types). You are also seeing lots of rather high-quality fake German States thalers, Swiss 5Fr and shooting thalers, etc - basically, any popular series they think they can forge well. I honestly think they may be hitting the non-U.S. stuff more now b/c more casual collectors (at least here in the U.S.) aren't quite as familiar with diagnosing it yet.
Point being, there is LOADS of this stuff filtering out on eBay, and eBay really does form a significant portion of where people are getting their coins (including cobs)... in particular world coins, which people in many areas don't have local suppliers for.
NOW.... about that "treasure hunting group selling fake gold escudo cobs about a decade ago"... DO tell. Any further info on that... and even better, any photos of examples of their work??
In terms of other domestic faking operations (and I won't include the production of REALLY good-quality intended replicas which DON'T clearly display COPY in the manner "mackaydon" mentioned... it's not lost on the distributors of such things that these pieces sometimes get turned around as genuine to uninitiated end buyers)... You of course read cryptic stories here and there alluding to certain salvage outfits casting managed quantities of sea-salvaged pieces.. and NOT as replicas. Of course, that's all apocryphal... As had been discussed on here in the past, there was a reseller outfit in the 90's that was selling framed "shipwreck" pieces... Since that thread was last active, I got to examine, in hand, a supposed 1715 Fleet 8 Reales that turned out to be from this same outfit. It came with a facsimile of the Fisher-style Cobb Coin Co. cert that even included a tracing, printed number, and stamped seal... though if you look very closely, NOT Fisher's official seal, it was their company name! The coin itself? Highly suspect...
