Counterfeit coins

LDFerguson said:
Be grateful that we don't live in a country where your internet searches are monitored. It would make for an interesting conversation with the fraud squad. "See there's this website called Askaboutmoney.com and we were having a discussion ... honest."
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Seeing as you started the thread we promise we'll come and visit you in The Joy, seriously we will, I'll bake a cake and include the file too :)
 
LDFerguson said:
This is one of the parts of this story that I find intriguing. I know absolutely nothing about the cost of manufacturing small metal discs, but given that €2 coins are two-tone and are have raised lettering, I would have thought that the machine required to make them would be very expensive. Somebody somewhere has invested heavily in tooling up for this scam so I assume they're expecting to churn out huge quantities to make it worthwhile.
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I know how to do it. You'd need a Toolmaker (I'm a toolmaker), a 3D Scanner a CNC Milling Machine, A Spark Eroder and a Stamping Press. That's all very commonly available equipment. The cost of tooling etc in the Far East would be, at most, €30k. The hard part is getting the correct metal blanks at the right price and finding the supply chain to get the coins to the target market. It seems like a high risk low margin enterprise.
 
I know of at least one automated coin machine that rejects them anyway. Apparently it measures both weight and size and knows the fakes from the reals. So obliviously they are not that good at making fakes!
 
JohnJay said:
I know of at least one automated coin machine that rejects them anyway. Apparently it measures both weight and size and knows the fakes from the reals. So obliviously they are not that good at making fakes!
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Most coin machines reject counterfeits. Good ones check the magnetic signature of the coins.
 
There was an episode in Minder years ago about this using Irish 50p coins in a travelling Funfair. The Fair operator(s) was Irish (played by McGinley) and he brought all the coins over in slot machines in a truck by boat to London. No one would check all the slot machines.
 
elcato said:
There was an episode in Minder years ago about this using Irish 50p coins in a travelling Funfair. The Fair operator(s) was Irish (played by McGinley) and he brought all the coins over in slot machines in a truck by boat to London. No one would check all the slot machines.
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I actually did this after the punt was created. I lugged about IR£70 of Irish 50p across the border. At that time, the NI banks did not distinguish between Stg an IR 50s. I made about £3 on the transaction but didn't bother doing it again! It wasn't easy to get large quantities of 50p coins.
 
Purple said:
I know how to do it. You'd need a Toolmaker (I'm a toolmaker), a 3D Scanner a CNC Milling Machine, A Spark Eroder and a Stamping Press. That's all very commonly available equipment. The cost of tooling etc in the Far East would be, at most, €30k. The hard part is getting the correct metal blanks at the right price and finding the supply chain to get the coins to the target market. It seems like a high risk low margin enterprise.
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The depth and breath of knowledge available in the Askaboutmoney community never ceases to amaze me.
 
Slim said:
I actually did this after the punt was created. I lugged about IR£70 of Irish 50p across the border. At that time, the NI banks did not distinguish between Stg an IR 50s. I made about £3 on the transaction but didn't bother doing it again! It wasn't easy to get large quantities of 50p coins.
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How much did you spend on petrol or diesel? :)
 
Purple said:
I know how to do it. You'd need a Toolmaker (I'm a toolmaker), a 3D Scanner a CNC Milling Machine, A Spark Eroder and a Stamping Press. That's all very commonly available equipment. The cost of tooling etc in the Far East would be, at most, €30k. The hard part is getting the correct metal blanks at the right price and finding the supply chain to get the coins to the target market. It seems like a high risk low margin enterprise.
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Finally AskAboutMoney spills the full details on making money.
 
huskerdu said:
Over 30 years ago , you could use one of the small Irish coins (5p I think) in German vending machines and it was accept it as a 1 DM coin . By the mid 90s vending machines in German were sophisticated enough to reject them.
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My Dad worked in a bank in Dublin in the 1980s and they got a fair few German tourists coming in buying bags and bags of five pence pieces!
 
I knew of someone many years ago who used to pay for her weekly Travelcard in dodgy £1 coins. All in a London Underground machine.
 
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