When you are never quite sure if you want to buy a raw rare coin from your local coin store because of all the counterfeits you see online that are being produced you will always rather go with a graded coin! Being scared of spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a coin that turns out fake has caused everyone to buy graded coins instead doing your own research and inspect the coin you wanted to buy. The more counterfeits are produced the more scared the collectors are of raw ungraded coins causing everyone to pay ten maybe even hundreds of dollars for the grading service. So in reality the more scared the collectors get of counterfeits the richer the grading companies get..... on a paranoid note it makes you wonder if the grading companies fight with counterfeiters  has a some what different relationship than we all think? The coin collectors community seems to be getting smaller when the grading companies keep getting bigger something just does not seem right?

Hello i work in a coin shop in Temecula California and have been seeing lots of fake gold pamp suisse 10g bars in package come over the counter, but i i identify them as fakes by weighing them and matching them up with the correct weight still in package. I know there are people making some with the right weight in package but have the wrong dimensions on the bar which is almost impossible to measure without taking it out. i haven't bought any fakes so far but plenty of shops around me have lost thousands of dollars from these fakes! does anyone have any tips on how to identify fake bars in plastic without ripping them out????? i also came across a fake 20$ liberty gold coin that looked pretty close to the real ones, but weighed a couple grams off so i passed on it. i made a cheat sheet with all the weights and dimensions on common gold coins and bullion such as krugrands, sovereigns and  such for everyone working in the shop. look out everyone and always check your work when buying gold!