• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 - Collecting Coins Profitably
• Chapter 2 - Reading a Coin Like a Book
• Chapter 3 - Bigger and Bighter
• Chapter 4 - The Grading of U.S. Coins
• Chapter 5 - Grading Services and the Plastic Revolution
• Chapter 6 - Beauty and the Best Authenticating Proofs
• Chapter 7 - Telling Fact from Fiction
• Chapter 8 - Making Money in Coins Right Now
• Chapter 9 - Making Sure the Price is Right
• Chapter 10 - Registry Sets Get High Grades
• Chapter 11 - Secret of Cherrypicking
• Chapter 12 - &Insider Trading& of Rare Coins
• Chapter 13 - Dangers of Buying Coins on the Internet and by Mail
• Chapter 14 - Cashing in at Shows
• Chapter 15 - Selling High, Higher, Highest
• Chapter 16 - Don't Let Uncle Sam Pick Your Pocket
• Chapter 17 - Myths That Can Cost Millions
• Chapter 18 - Endangered Coins and How to Rescue Them
• Chapter 19 - Security After September 11 and Hurricane Katrina
• Appendix
• Glossary
• Index
• Back Cover

– 7 – TELLING FACT FROM FICTION Like the proverbial “bad penny,” counterfeit coins have been coming back. These bad pennies are costing unwitting victims good dollars. Fake and altered coins were a major concern for coin collectors in the early and mid 1980s. But the problem diminished greatly after the founding of third-party grading services starting in 1986. Although the certification services were intended primarily to address rampant problems with grading, they also had a major effect on cleaning up the hobby of coin collecting through authentication—addressing the genuineness of coins sent to them. Thereafter, counterfeit coins became almost a curiosity rather than a plague. More recently, however, the old problem has reared its ugly head again because of abuses on the Internet. Online coin sellers have offered many obviously counterfeit or altered coins, taking advantage of unwary buyers with little or no knowledge. Today, buyers are confronted not only with bad pennies, but also phony gold pieces and other fake coins offered online. The organized coin industry’s strict adherence to the Hobby Protection Act, which makes selling counterfeit coins illegal, is responsible for ridding the field of these spurious pieces. PCGS, NGC, ICG, and ANACS are to be credited with outstanding records for spotting fakes and alerting the public to their existence. There are three basic types of inauthentic coins: altered, cast counterfeit, and die-struck counterfeit. All will be explored and illustrated with photographs taken by and repro-duced here by courtesy of Pedro Collazo-Oliver. Altered Coins An altered coin is a real coin that has been tampered with. For example, the 1856 Flying Eagle cent is a rare, valuable, sought-after coin in all grades. Even heavily circulated ex-126