How to identify a replica or copy of a coin - in this case a San Diego Pacific Exibition commemorative coin; or how to avoid listing an authentic coin on E-Bay that E-Bay incorrectly determines is a copy or replica.

In this post I am going to share an experience I had when listing a commemorative coin for sale on E-Bay. The coin was de-listed/removed when E-Bay determined it was a replica or a copy of a coin.  They don't prohibit the sale of a replica or copy of a coin but when listed it must be described as such. And technically, selling a coin that is a copy or replica without disclosing it as such is fraud, something which is against the law.

In this case the coin was authentic. So what went wrong? Could I call them to clear up any misunderstanding and to allow me to re-list the coin?

I received an e-mail shortly after the listing went live informing me of their decision and with the following information:

"We had to remove your listing because it didn’t follow our Replica coins and currency policy. Replica currency that follows our rules can be listed on eBay, but replica coins and counterfeit currency are not allowed."

 What is their policy?

- Only one-sided replica paper currency that follows these rules can be listed:
-- Size is less than 75% or greater than 150% of the genuine currency
-- The listing includes a photo of the actual replica paper currency being sold
-- The listing includes the word “replica” in the title and description
- Replica coins are not allowed
- Counterfeit or altered coins and currency aren't not allowed, nor is equipment designed to make them

 What happens next?

 "You can't relist items we've ended. Please ensure your current and future listings follow this policy."

What did happen next?

I called customer service and I was told, "no you cannot re-list the coin. In order to re-list the coin you must have it professionally graded."

*****

Not good news. The coin in question wasn't that valuable. In MS65 it would be worth about $140.To get the coin professionally graded by PCGS or NGC would be costing more than I could earn selling it. Part of the cost is an annual membership before I could submit the coin. After that is a cost per coin. In my case that's not particularly a bad thing as I have plenty of other coins that I could submit. Getting a coin graded is a good way to validate the authenticity of the coins. However, my goal was not to go to all that trouble. My goal was to simply sell off what coins I have, as is.

It should be noted that I have been a member of E-Bay since November 2003 without any negative feedback.

What went wrong? Why did E-Bay determine that my listing was fraudulent? 

I consider myself to be very knowledgeable when it comes to identifying coins and knowing whether they are authentic. So of course I was upset when they determined I had posted a fraudulent listing. I argued with the customer service rep. I told them to arrest me then, if they were going to accuse me of  of committing fraud. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong and I assured them, to no avail, that the coin was authentic and that they were wrong.

After I hung up the phone, got over being angry and offended, I calmed down and proceeded to figure out what went wrong. I first considered my listing, the words I used to describe the coin. I found nothing wrong there. The coin is in exceptionally good condition and though not a professional grader I would consider it to be MS 65 or better. It is actually quite flawless and that is what really confused me. Did it look so great that it was too hard to believe it was authentic? I mulled that idea over a bit and then decided that was a ridiculous thought. So what then?

When taking photos of things to sell I have several options. I will use a scanner - a flat screen scanner which will give me a resolution of 1200 dpi or higher and I generally will use 600 dpi which, if the coin isn't slabbed (encased in plastic) and lays flat, will render the coin in exceptionally good detail. Or I will use a digital camera - my being 20 megapixels; or I use a USB digital microscope. 

Here are the images of the coin I listed taken with my USB digital microscope:

They look pretty good, don't they? Too good to be true?

Here are two images of similar coins, one stamped as a copy and one that is listed as a "restrike". Technically a coin that is a restrike is a coin that was restruck by a government mint for whatever reason it happened; it is a tricky way to describe a coin as having been created as a copy or replica after the fact, as a restrike of a legally minted coin.

STAMPED "COPY"
 

 

 

RESTRIKE

I was confused. To make things even more difficult to understand, I didn't simply post the two images of my coin; I posted the following close-up images, again using my USB digital microscope.

CLOSE-UP PHOTOS of AUTHENTIC COIN

The more I compared the images the more dumbfounded and annoyed I became with E-Bay. I was even more annoyed as E-Bay flat-out offered no other options with regards to validating my claim. It wasn't until I decided to use my flat-screen scanner at 600 dpi that I realized what the problem was. Compare the following images to the ones I took with my microscope and you will see, I believe, that to E-Bay my previous images looked fake. Again, the images are not fake, but simply put, unexpected as most images of coins posted are done using a flat-screen scanner or camera, though when considering that older digital cameras may have been rendered at less than 10 megapixels, or even less than 5 megapixels, how fake could the ones using the microscope really appear?

You can be the judge of that I suppose. The images are of the same coin I was trying to sell and personally although they do appear to be strikingly different, I do believe E-Bay is on drugs! I think the problem is that those taken with the digital microscope look, well, too shiny. Too good.

A LESSON IN HISTORY - PART 1

I was born in 1954 at the height of nuclear testing, the cold war, civil rights reforms, McCarthyism and especially during the age of abundance and entitlement for the (artificial) middle class, I consider myself not just fortunate, but gifted too, born into a reasonably prosperous family. How much I wouldn't know otherwise, today, the history from the 50's, 60's and 70's... the collision that in my opinion has changed the world of several million years into something else, something many consider the "modern age of civilization".

So, 1954 is actually the age at which a middle class came to be. Prior to that, including during WWII, there was no middle class, only the wealthy, the "well to do" and the poor. There were distinct differences between them.

The wealthy were extraordinarily wealthy in general and quite distinct from the well to do. The wealthy generally had ancestry, wealthy ancestry with roots in big business. The well to do got lucky, cashing in on opportunities but without any family legacies. And the poor... not only were they numerous but they deserved to be where they were - poor. That is how it always was...

There was a great deal of "pride"... that to be "well to do" meant proof of living a life of virtue, better yet if one was wealthy. God rewarded the well to do and the wealthy... provided for them, this based on the perceived notion that they were devoutly worshiping God. God frowned upon the poor as there was a reason for it... they were undeserving. They were poor for good reason. To be something of a success meant being good in the eyes of God. Religion was everything, even into the 1960's.

I consider myself hugely grateful I was born in 1954. I almost consider it proof that things are not as they seem and there is a bizarre reason why I came to be in 1954. But let's ignore that for now.
After WWII and because of it, America became the world's Superpower. We had the modern factories, the experts, the motivations.The world was about to go through it's first massive reformation.

Two World Wars provided the incentive for extreme product development and experimentation. The United States with it relatively new infrastructure was ideally poised to accommodate extremes the world may encounter. WWI was only the beginning... a war we didn't want to involve ourselves in, but ultimately had to. WWII on the other hand, we initially saw ourselves as peace-makers, believed even as warplanes from Japan were approaching Pearl harbor, that we we in the business of world-peace.

After the horrors of WWI this was to be expected. The world had been brought order. Germany was punished. Never again would the world experience such an atrocity, such a devastating loss or life at the hands of a madman.

But such did happen, WWII happened. The United States was involved from the start and it produced extraordinary obligation, involvement, work and patriotism as to slap and nearly knock the US unconscious, only to have the US rally and crush the opposition, the enemy, the evil with countries it considered allies.

The result was the origin of the age of entitlement, the origin of suburbia and term Middle Class.... war hero's home to celebrate victory, to enjoy being the victors (unlike when soldiers returned from Viet Nam) amidst factories and businesses that evolved to confront the needs of a world war that was a direct threat to this country!

My parents went through the Great depression, food lines, desperation and fear of the future. Then came WWII. My dad was approximately 7 years old then. More rationing ensued... women went to work at factories and businesses. Ironically, they had no choice as all the eligible men were overseas and fighting Nazi's or Japs, and the women had to man the factories.

Women of course at the time were considered unable to do what they were doing, however such prejudice and misunderstanding was put aside... and how odd... women succeeded and some never left the workforce, but overall, many got swept up in the New Age of Suburbia...

Suburbia is a huge understatement. Or poorly defines the times.

Woman had, prior to WWII, achieved the right to vote, had made some gains into being on "equal terms" with male counterparts, to work otherwise male jobs, yet in general Victorian mores still ruled.
The New Suburbia provided the perfect balance between returning war vets and their factory forced women... technological improvements made suburban sprawls possible; social mores required Victorian rights of passage, where woman marries man and sells her soul in the process.

But all of this was great!! Really, really great. There seemed to be a limitless amount of resources and the expertise to put them in the American Suburban home. Not only to put them there but also the people to enjoy it all. This was the Middle-Class. Husbands by the millions got great jobs, often without having any college experience. These men had wives that produced 2.5 children per suburban household, sent those children to public schools, brought them in for regular checkups, had good food on the table, a future and essentially paved the way to America being Great.

Of course you had to tow the line, avoid being too smart, like reading "weird, anti-American" news or books, seeming to be open to liberal, socialistic, communistic views or simply being accused by your neighbor who really wants to seduce or rape your wife, that you are a communist, and as such, being simply strange or subversive meant you were going to jail or your life was in ruins.

But let's get back to the new Suburbia... "Leave it to Beaver", Dennis the Menace", "Lassie"... good "wholesome television.

What's really weird is that didn't come about until many year after I was born. There was no TV when I was born. There were electric refrigerators, but to my knowledge no such washer/dryers, dish washers, etc.

We got milk delivered to our milk-box outdoors, milk in bottles with cream on top, mail delivered twice a day including Saturdays. Life was viewed differently to, and again some of this I only came to understand when I was older... but i remember what I do. Electrocutions were for some odd reason a common reason for death. But we had Polio, smallpox, Scarlet fever, leprosy... i recall walking by houses with notices on the doors that the house was under quarantine.

Still, much of the environment was wonderful... lots of woods, and I lived in a city of 30,000, creeks, areas to bike, to hunt to explore. All gone now - developed.

I remember, my elementary school had a field - to the east I think, where first there was a baseball field, then a football field. A cross street divided the end of the football field from woods. The woods were thick with a creek passing through it. There were roads on each side but they were quite a ways apart. As a child until 10 at least I or some friends would explore these woods that led into a deeper woods.

The town razed the whole woods and creek across the street from the football field where I grew up. Left a huge grassy divider with no creek. To the south where there were thousands of acres of wooded hill, all the was razed and developed too.

The woods that began a half mile from my grandmother's house were razed, thousands of acres again.
The hard part to share is not just the environment, but what it was like to be born in the age when the "Great Age" began. The age referred to when politicians say "Let's make American Great Again".
As long as your family was middle class you basically had everything. You even got an allowance. You lived in a nice house and life was not only pretty simple, but especially "normal".

I could leave at 7 AM and come home before dark, alone. I wasn't always asked where was I going, and this was quite normal. I spent a lot of time exploring the woods, but also exploring town. There were no supermarkets, superstores, fast food restaurants then. It was a town, with hard earned and often inherited businesses.

I often took a bus... and lets say IMPORTANT NOTE: this is all from before I was 10, which would have been late 1964.

I loved the coin stores, which usually had gizmos like tiny cameras... I bought a couple with film a quarter inch wide but never used it. But I saw some great old coins for sale, especially gold coins often for $10 or so.

You could get a lot of candy for a dime.

Great times to live - if you've gotten this far with my dissertation. But in hindsight, deplorable years... except if you happen to be the kid, until you reach 18.

I turned 18 in 1972. The draft for the Vietnam war ended 3 days before my 18th birthday. Simple trivia. Although with a draft lottery in place and my number being sweet 16 I was sure to have been drafted to fight in Indonesia., as Vietnam had somewhat ended.

These are great times to be alive. Remember, I was born and there was no TV. Medicine was on the verge, but not quite there for some astounding developments. Civil Rights was big news, considering the rights of minorities and what it means to be a minority, to be Black, a negro back then. Magazine, newspaper subscriptions to "keep up with the news", which now I wish I never had.

I was bullied as a child... fuck that...I get bullied now and I stand up for myself. The difference is that as a kid you don't necessarily know that or how to do it. In fact, it's a life-long lesson. To me, that's a blow to reincarnation, getting it right the next time, as I doubt I will remember I need to be assertive and as much in their face as they are mine.

Such technology today, making it possible to play awesome, realistic computer games, watch awesome TV and movies. Have knowledge of the world at my finger tips when for most of my youth and older a library was where I had to go.

But still, how fortunate I've been to see myself go from milk at the door to milk through the internet.
None of the latter is why I just shared my story...

I'm retired, I like to write... soon I may be dead and the only thing left behind are these words... courtesy of technology in the 21st century.

What I really would like to address here is "cruelty to animals". That is, if I knew where to start. Perhaps the religious believe that humans, man, possess dominance over wild-life, not to mention, women, Blacks, and again, the poor.

Extinctions of wildlife. Extreme climate change.

Climate change which affects us all. Which seem to be shunned by the so called, intelligent people.

Cruelty to animals... decimating their natural environment. The Monarch butterfly, so pretty, is near extinction... did you know that? It migrates to the Amazon forests in South America, or at least it tries now - much of it's habitat has or is being destroyed.

We can put information at our fingertips, a man on the Moon and soon, Mars, yet we let our world be destroyed and die. We are... some have compared humans to parasites, and I believe in many ways that is true.

Which is odd as humans can pretty much become super-hero's if they really want to, starting with sane solutions to humanities future.

WELCOME ALL TO 2020 :)

Greetings...

For those wondering why the long duration since my last post I can answer that.

In January 2019 I was diagnosed with cancer; non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Mine was pretty dire, however I responded to chemo and currently I am in total remission.

Major chemo lasted between Feb. 2019 to July 2019. I went on disability from work, and then and now am on SSDI.

My life has changed.

Adding to the "mess" we now have the COVD pandemic. Due to ongoing maintenance chemo I am particularly at risk. I'm restricted to self-isolation for who knows how long.

The purpose of this post is just to let you know I'm still here and plan to post more soon.

These are trying times. Hope you look out for your friends and neighbors...

BobKat

BRIANNA MAITLAND - MISSING 15 YEARS - THE "SYMPATHIZER'S" THEORY

15 years have passed since Brianna Maitland, 17 years old, vanished under mysterious circumstances on the night of March 19, 2004, in Montgomery Vermont. She had been working at a nearby restaurant until about 11:30 that night when she'd left to go home (she'd left her housemate a note, earlier that day, saying she'd be home after work). Her car was found the next morning crashed into the side of an old, abandoned farmhouse. The following pictures exist thanks to the curious eyes of three visitors to the area who had been skiing, were driving by the house around 7 AM and saw the car and thought it looked very unusual.

Published courtesy of "World Travellers"

Published courtesy of "World Travellers"

The police had seen the car also, with varied accounts of when that was. In the early morning hours a news-crew took photos and collected video of the scene. The video showed the driver's side of the car; of interest is the fact that early (and for a couple of years) on the family wasn't aware that video existed of that side of the car.

NBC Local News (VT)

The police returned and and did a cursory inspection of the scene, noting the license plate (registered to Brianna's mother), and had the car towed to a garage, where it sat for a few days. The police did not follow up with the registered owner of the car, although their theory at the time was said to have been, that the driver was drunk, spun off the road into the farmhouse. 

That was the theory, but the scenes above seemed not to look anything like that of a drunk driver having an accident, in my opinion and that of others.

My role in all of this was unexpected and I generally recount this as people like to know how I got involved in all of this and how I know what I know. 

I recall it was November of that year that I was at work over a hundred miles away, browsing the news on the internet, when I saw her story. The police at the time had chalked up Brianna's disappearance as drug related, strongly suggesting Brianna was fine and had run away. They described her to be of "questionable character" which upset me - bit premature to state that I felt. And why had police jumped so eagerly to a theory that it was drug related?  Nothing in the article suggested such a thing and a young woman was missing. Her car keys were missing.

I looked up her parent's phone number and called, something I'd never done before. I offered my services to try to find those keys. With over twenty years experience metal detecting (as a hobby), I offered to see if I could find the car keys, which I never did. However, after my search ended on that cold, rainy day, her father invited me to a local tavern where we could sit down and talk, have something to eat and drink. Brianna's father, encouraged by my communication skills asked me if I would talk to her people, like her friends, persons who felt they had information, and work with a PI/profiler from Texas. I was 50 years old at the time.

Of all the "True Crime" cases I'd ever read about this missing person case was the most bizarre and convoluted ever. One of the worst aspects were the rumors that spread almost immediately, of which I've written about in previous posts. They all mostly involved the people who knew Brianna, some of whom were friends. One such rumor was a confession made to one of Brianna's friends stating that "he had watched the life drain out of Brianna". The person was questioned and I was told denied ever saying it. One can watch the interview with Brianna's friend, Katie Manning, here on CrawlSpace:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=tightropetb&p=brianna+maitland+youtube+crawlspace#id=1&vid=b5502cf73ca9dcd19a7713b5ee4baf2f&action=view

Chloe, CrawlSpaces' psychological profiler, also has a Blog I would highly recommend:
https://chloefromcrawlspace.blogspot.com/2019/01/missing-in-vermont-18-parking-lot-story.html#comment-form

In my last post about Brianna which you can find here: https://bobkatlair.blogspot.com/2018/03/ I pose and review various theories, some of them are my own. It's no surprise that one of the earliest theories focused on a friend of Brianna's, a girl named Kealie, who grew upset with Brianna while at a party three weeks earlier. Apparently Brianna was flirting with her boyfriend. The consequence of which was that as Brianna left with her ex-boyfriend James, Kealie followed her out into the parking lot and beat her up pretty bad - Brianna didn't fight back and her explanation was that "Kealie was a friend".

Brianna after the fight

It was little wonder that Kealie became a person of interest undergoing intense interrogation and scrutiny; in addition Brianna had gone with a friend to the police to file charges against Keallie, something that in this post - "The Sympathizer's Theory", has significant importance. Eventually police allegedly clear Keallie from having any involvement.

My theory suggests we paid far too much attention on Kealie while ignoring others present at the party. For Kealie's part, yeah she beat Brianna up pretty badly. She admits that and showed remorse. It's others that were at the party that night that concern me. Did one or more of them feel Brianna deserved it?

Based on interviews with her friends it was clear Brianna was actually the "new girl in town". Yes she had grown up in the area, however she went to a school that didn't include many of the people she would befriend in 2004. Brianna changed high schools near her senior year and began to meet some of these people. She met more people after moving out of her parent's house, moving closer to Montgomery VT. However, though she had time to date the boyfriend she was with when the fight happened, she broke up with him and for a short time moved away from the area. 

Weeks before she disappeared, and shortly before the fight she moved again, got the job at the Black Lantern restaurant in Montgomery VT. She was back! And it would turn out this would make some people unhappy. Brianna thought she finally found a life, with friends after being isolated as she saw it for so long. That new life included sex, drugs, rock & roll, literally. Along with marijuana, which Brianna was not shy to admit she loved, there were harder drugs, like crack cocaine. Information varies as to just how involved she became with these harder drugs, however it may have provided a medium for what ultimately happened to her. That and the fact that in a small town, relationships and friendships could change often, resulting in feelings of resentment and jealousy. As a result there were those who likely didn't much like Brianna.

Persons who likely were at the party three weeks previously when Kealie beat up Brianna. Of those persons there were those who likely sided with Brianna, and those who didn't. Perhaps those who didn't were annoyed that Brianna didn't lift a finger to defend herself. To them it may have been just one more thing that annoyed them about Brianna. I call these person(s) "the sympathizers", who sided with Keallie.

It's a sad fact that where there are serious drugs being passed around, people are paranoid. Anyone involved is expected to avoid the police - for any reason. Brianna violated this unwritten rule by filing charges against Keallie, which it's likely certain persons found out about before she disappeared. As the saying goes, "a rat is a rat". It's my theory, person(s) at the party three weeks earlier felt motive enough to cause Brianna's disappearance.