COUNTERING COUNTERFEITERS
Meet the Trenton man who has declared war on people who are making money by ripping off coin collectors,
Hundreds of brightly coloured collectible coins and heavy pieces of bullion shine brightly beneath protective casings in Mike Marshall’s Trenton home.
While collectible coins can fetch thousands of dollars from hungry collectors, many pieces in Marshall’s collection are essentially worthless.
As a collector, he doesn’t just compile rare pieces of metal produced by the Royal Canadian Mint — he also looks for fakes. Marshall has amassed a giant collection of counterfeit coins and studied them carefully, looking for markings left in a coin by the die.
“What I was able to do was create a list of markers for each denomination that I can use on any given day that the coin is counterfeit,” he said. “For two coins to have exactly the same mark on it, the odds are astronomical against it.”
This weekend, Marshall will show crowds at the Toronto Coin Expo just how convincing counterfeit coins can be.
“Every day, worldwide, people get stung with counterfeit coins,” he said.
Technology has allowed people around the world to reproduce coins that look and feel remarkably similar to the real thing, Marshall said. Marshall’s passion for hunting counterfeiters started in 2007 when a collector he knew spent about $6,000 on two rare coins to complete a set. Marshall, a collector since childhood, studied the finds.
“Something wasn’t right,” Marshall said. “I did a little bit more research. And within 20 minutes, I was able to tell him that they were manufactured in China.”
Marshall said the man, in his 70s, broke down crying. His savings were drained.
“I decided that day I was going to make it a personal vendetta to fight counterfeiting in Canadian coins,” Marshall said.
Since making that decision, Marshall has worked with the RCMP and various companies to crack down on fake coins. He has proven to sites such as eBay that some of their auctions are for illegal counterfeits, and has convinced them to take those listings down. He scours eBay and Kijiji daily.
“I had 17 counterfeit Canadian coins removed from eBay this morning, all in Europe,” Marshall said Wednesday. Counterfeit currency is “something everyone in this business has to manage on an ongoing basis,” says Alex Reeves, of the Royal Canadian Mint.
Counterfeiting is a criminal offence, and the mint regularly collaborates with domestic and international law enforcement, Reeves said. Clamping down on fake coins isn’t just about protecting collectors, Marshall said. “Our coinage is some of the most beautiful coinage in the world. And if people are allowed to just counterfeit it and replicate it at will, the mystique and the rarity of some of our coins will be just lost.”
Marshall’s seminar on fake coins will take place at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Toronto Reference Library.