American Mint rip off

Hey all, I wanted to post this and ask everyone how the American Mint gets away with what they do. My friend gave me 6 (tokens) today in appreciation of all the help that I've been doing for him and his fiance and they know I collect coins, I gladly took them and said thank you. His fiance's dad gave these to her a while back and they had a bad falling out she said so she didnt want them anymore. Ok my main question is how does the American mint or any other company have the right to put a denomination on a coin that is not legal tender? Obviously they are not but to someone who knows nothing about coins be it the person spending or receiving how would they know that they are not legal tender? I mean if I was broke and I took these tokens and spent them how would anyone know they are practically worthless (not that I would in fear of jail lol). second question is why are they continually allowed to deceive people? I would think that the real mint would want to shut these shyster's down. I'm sure that it cuts into their business and we all know if you mess with Uncle Sams money you are bound to get shut down I post thing continuously on my facebook page to deter people from buying from these companies but it seems they still continue to get business from people with no knowledge of coins so if others could pass the word that would be great. I attached a link to one of the tokens I am referencing cause I dont feel like taking a bunch of USB microscope pics of it. http://www.americanmint.com/us-curr...ens-lady-liberty-dollar-trial-9172720-02.html

 

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Why don't you report them to the Secret Service? Maybe there is a reward.

Chris

 

Every coin the mint make whether proof, uncirculated, or intended fro circulation is legal tender. As an example, you can buy a cup of coffee with a proof coin. The link to the independent company may sell fake coins, which obviously do not have a denomination. Cheers.

http://www.usmint.gov/

 

Them and many others are Thomas Kinkade of coin sales. No disrespect to the artistic ability of Kinkade, but he was over commercialized. It followed the pattern of "anything made to be collectible, generally isn't." I've been asked over to see many HSN coin collections, only to walk out because I didn't want to offend them by telling them that the coins they purchased weren't worth 10% of what they paid. The company isn't doing anything wrong unfortunately, it's the people that don't educate themselves before they purchase.

 

I can almost hear that conversation in my head ....
Me: Uh hello secret service there is some companies that defrauds people
SS: oh is that right
Me: yeah they been doing it for years
SS: who's that?
Me: Franklin mint and American mint
SS: NO REALLY?.. WE DIDNT KNOW! we'll get right on that ...lol

 

Because they're plainly fantasy pieces. The fact that certain individuals aren't yet well-enough educated to see them as "deceptive" has no bearing on their relative legality. Frankly, one of the biggest problems with our hobby is newcomers' unwillingness to apply due diligence they'd automatically use when considering other purchases of this size; it's like they check their existing intelligence at the door.

 

That coin does have a ONE DOLLAR on it. And Trial, and the page says it's their interpretation of what the coin could look like.

 

but my point is if someone doesnt know anything about coins or currency who's to say I couldnt use one of these to buy a can of soda for example. Thats why I never understood why it was allowed.

 

Who's gonna spend $80 to buy a popsicle from the ice cream man

 

Had a guy around here pay $80 worth(silver value) of Franklin halves to go watch a movie. Kid was busted for theft when the theater reported him...stole around $3000 worth of junk silver.

 

from you? I hope not

 

Because - to my mind - the failure to recognize something like this as not legal tender does not meet the minimum standard of "functional in society." It's astonishing enough that it's not "minimum functionality" in numismatics....until one recalls Beanie Babies.

 

BTW anyone interested in some beautiful Cu representation of what some coins would look like

 

No...from one of my customers. I was able to positively ID a few coins that had memorably bad marks.

 

@SuperDave pretend you work a typical 9-5 job and have no knowledge of numismatics. Lets say someone came in where you work and you had no internet connection and you see something that say USA $1 and it appears to you to be gold in nature and they wanted to buy a $1 can of soda would you not be tempted to sell that can of soda to them for that what appears to be gold and says $1

 

Do you know how many gas station clerks accidentally take foreign coins. I don't see the big deal of one of these or things like them occasionally being used in commerce. This reminds me of the dan carr "what if a kid thinks he scored huge $ in the year 2200 after finding a 64d carr peace dollar" argument. There's so much more to worry about, ya know...

 

very true, $1 is not worth worrying about but my OP is asking how companies get away with putting denominations on fake or fantasy pieces, I guess I'll let this one be but it does annoy me that companies are allowed to deceive people like this.

 

No, I'm not stupid enough to be unaware of what "money" is. How long would a cashier who couldn't recognize money retain their job?

It's not like I disagree with your underlying point - I view that stuff with as much disgust as you do. It's just that, when we're already fighting a losing battle to keep counterfeits of actual money/collectible coins out of the commerce chain, I have a hard time getting so worked up by crud like this.

 

And that one, indeed, is crud.

 

Uh oh. Here we go again.