Crooks making a mint by faking rare £1 coins
Fraudsters are altering new £1 coins in the hope of selling them as rare ‘collector’s items’, experts claim.
Coins in which the middle silver circle appears to have fallen out are on sale on eBay for 40 times the face value, while others appear to show the Queen’s head on the wrong side.
sellers claim the coins are the result of manufacturing errors at the royal Mint, and are demanding huge figures – as much as £5,000 – based on their supposed rarity value.
But expert dominic Chorney, of rare coin broker a H Baldwin’s, said some on sale on eBay and other websites had clearly been tampered with. ‘there are all sorts of things people can do to a coin to make it look like there was some kind of production error,’ he said. ‘I think people would be wise to steer clear of the eBay mania.’
One trader was offering a coin where the sil- ver centre appears to have melted onto the outer gold ring for £5,000. the description says: ‘this is not home-made like others you may have seen on here, the centre appears to have slipped out when being pressed.’
the royal Mint said there were ‘small variances’ in the coins it produced – but nothing like what was available for purchase online.
a spokesman for the Mint said: ‘We have observed a number of coins with separated and reversed inners and outers for sale. Our belief is that these have been deliberately manipulated.’
there is no evidence traders are selling coins they have tampered with themselves. eBay said it will investigate reports of fraud.