Fake "finds"

[phrunt]

I had a few people think my silver finds were fake, sometimes my coins come out of the ground looking like they were never in it.  Especially silver coins.  It must just be my soil type.

Here is a quick example, I just pulled up the first photo of a days hunt to find a coin that looked like it was never really lost.

Look at the 1940 threepence second from left, looks near new.  The others look pretty good too, all I do is wash the dirt off under the tap with a bit of water.  I always clean my coins before putting the photos up so they can be seen better, no point putting up a dirty coin photo.

I was even accused of this photo being fake having coins I didn't find on it, I found every last one of them and have photos of each ones dig hole 🙂

So while I agree it's sad some feel the need to put up fake photos of finds, and the dodgy Youtube channels and so on that are doing it for some sort of hits financial gain are terribly wrong sometimes people get false accusations too which can be a bit frustrating.  It's when you put up photos like this some start to understand it's probably not fake. 

This was all from one small field, and it's had all the spendable cash removed before the photo being taken, so another hundred or so coins taken away and spent 😛

Successful nugget finds sometimes get accused of being fake too, perhaps because they may seem too good to be true.  Sometimes it's jealously I guess.  But it goes both ways, yes people fake finds, but people also find stuff and get accused of it being fake when it's not.

 

[JCR]

Many a local Gold/Silver rush was started by speculators salting claim area back in the old days. Nothing new under the Sun, just different people doing it.

[dogodog]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

sometimes my coins come out of the ground looking like they were never in it.  Especially silver coins.  It must just be my soil type.

I'm with you on that Simon, I can think of about 20 that were stained badly or black. I have not posted certain coins that I have found for the reason that someone might think or challenge my find. I have found peace dollars that I did not post and recently a 1985 one ounce silver bullion coin. I think most people, Even here would start to think something is a bit wonky about finding the larger silvers. So you will never see any of my big silver coins being posted . I privately post to my three great friends that are forum members. That being said. I try to photo my coins at the site and leave them dirty, followed by a clean up at home. But sometimes they just come out of the ground really nice. I really like to believe that all the coin finds I have seen on DP since I joined are all legit finds. 

[JamieinMaine]

Dishonesty is a sad trait to have.  I would rather show off all my beaver tabs than fake a find.

There was once a youtube person who got quite famous by yelling "hello world".  Every time he posted his finds, there was a Franklin half.   How many people find that many of those? 

It should have been a sign.....he is apparently rotting in jail now for allegations against kids.

[Steve Herschbach]

Silver coins often pop out of the ground looking like they were lost last week. And clad coins often look like they were lost 200 years ago. Just a soil and type of metal thing.

[GB_Amateur]

4 hours ago, phrunt said:

I was even accused of this photo being fake having coins I didn't find on it, I found every last one of them and have photos of each ones dig hole 🙂

Your situation is unusual because you have some loaded locations that have never been searched.  That's rare here in the USA.  It's like you've traveled 40 years back in time.  Now if you claim to have done that I'm going to join the suspicious ones. 

4 hours ago, phrunt said:

Sometimes it's jealously I guess.

That and hubris that no one can do so much better than they, the experts (in their rose colored glass covered eyes).

[schoolofhardNox]

I used to belong to a forum many years ago that had a bunch of (retired) detectorists, retired meaning they didn't get out much or go to different places. They also never learned their machines or bought anything new in probably 20 years. If someone posted an Indian Head cent, they would call them liars 😅 I never posted much there and eventually left. I have been accused (not here or not to my knowledge 😄) at local club meetings and digs, as well as competitive forums. I stop visiting them sites. So I try and look carefully at You Tube videos and make sure I don't write anyone off too early. I used to be suspicious when I first saw the Hoover Boys, but after watching them carefully I am satisfied they are real. But for every one real video, I question 3 or 4 others. Some people just need to show things they did not find for emotional reassurance. Sad really.

[Steve Herschbach]

I remember showing a big handful of jewelry I found in Hawaii detecting at a show, and a gal approached me and said "yeah, but you really did not find it." I actually was so caught off guard I was flabbergasted. It simply never occurred to me in my life to fake a find. I actually don't care about the stuff I find - it's the fact I found it that means everything to me. Back when I collected rocks people wanted to give me rocks for my collection, and I had zero interest. A rock somebody else found or bought meant nothing to me. I told that gal that no, I found that stuff, but she clearly did not think it was possible to find jewelry like that. Wasn't really calling me a liar per se. More like I was a person that claimed I saw little green men and believed it, when she knew they did not exist.

I will say I am extremely cautious on ever calling anyone out - in fact I don't do it. Not my job in life to be the finds police. With the amount of lies and BS that occur on social media faking a coin find has got to rank pretty low on the scale.

[Daniel Tn]

Ahh it all depends on how big you let your social media circle be.  Mine is very very small.  Some people have hundreds and thousands of followers and friends.  I have less than 200 and all are people I know on my Facebook personal pages.  I am on several local detecting group pages though.  If you're from a certain area and have dug there a while, you know what finds look like when they come out of your soil.  I don't call em out on it but my BS meter gets pegged quite often.  I remember a few years ago, a guy at the DIV hunts got busted for his "finds".  He had went through the trouble of buying relics, bringing them to the hunt, and then pretending he dug them.  The problem was...the seller he bought them on eBay from was also a regular DIV attendee, and posted screen shots of said "found" relics from when he had them for sale.  I don't get people like that.  

[phrunt]

When I first started detecting I detected a section of land behind my house, it had a house on it that was knocked down as it had a fire, the house wasn't destroyed by the fire but the house was old and really not worth fixing so it was disposed of, when I went detecting there I found some old coins, quite a few of them, they were in great condition and coins that shouldn't be in such good condition and should have had corrosion, they'd only been there about a year at most I guess, copper coins and so on, none were particularly deep although once the house was removed the land it was on became a paddock for the surrounding farm and they had plowed it and put in grass seed to feed sheep and just connected it onto the rest of the paddocks that surround it. 

I found some really great condition coins, I suspect someone that lived at the houses coin collection, it was well over a 100 year old house, perhaps it was hidden somewhere in the house the current people living it in did not know about and when they used the excavator to smash up the house and take the rubble away the coins remained in the long grass surrounding it.  I ended up buying the land and haven't found anything else decent there since except some lead toy figurines and a few coins, nothing to match the coins I originally found near the old house site.

Either way, long story short if someone found those coins in the condition I found them I'd think they were lying.... but I found them, many were from overseas, they were in that condition so I know it was real. 

Sometimes finds may seem unrealistic but there maybe a reason behind it even the finder doesn't know.

In saying that, I'm sure there are tonnes of fake finds out there, people may like the attention or think people will like them better if they find good stuff, who knows.  I thank those coins for getting me hooked on detecting 🙂