Topic: BEWARE of FAKE CASASCIUS COINS - page 2. (Read 25389 times)

I was joking around with you.
You can apply the CryptoBug Hologram with any crypto keys and it will still work. It's generic for flexability. It has no specific crypto amont on it...generic. See photo below for different cryptos it was funded with.



Those are my holograms. Not someone elses. Yes, There is a market for people that want keys built for them. They will pay for you to rebuild their wallet for them. For example somone would pay $100 for a redeemed piece, but if you rebuild it they will pay 3x. They would rather pay 3x than buy a piece for $100 that they can't do anything with. Thats what I was telling you. They dont care what hologram you use or coin as long as it works. okay maybe they will for 3x, but you get the point. They will pay more for a working wallet.

Well if you teach 100 people how to rebuild they only have to rebuild 10 times to reach large numbers. It doesn't take long for the numbers to grow. I use to do little siminars on physical cryptos. There is a large population that doesn't want to learn ive noticed, but they will pay for you to custom make it for them.

I will take your advice and make more Caribbean related holograms in the future. that will be exciting.

We can always improve something.

Thanks for the encouragement  

This is only the second time we have ever had any discussion and the first time on the forums outside of me asking about the coins you sold a while back. So not sure where your “joy” comes from.

They are not generic - size and window aside, they are copies of cas holograms. Most likely made by the same vendor selling the cas fakes.

You specifically told me that you get paid far over the coins regular value (I am taking about market value not some bargain value) to make rebuilt coins - even boasting 


Stating you bring “pieces back to life for thousands of people” and that you educate them how to protect themselves.  If they want to use a cas or lealana and understand the significance of those pieces and still want to use them, you should educate them on how to generate their own keys so they could save thousands vs overpaying you for a coin you didn't make using a copied hologram or plain simple using someone else's hologram - essentially a coin you put zero to little effort in doing.

In all seriousness, I hope you put more effort into your key generation - and that you didn’t cut corners there like you did with the holos.

I’ll stop here but if anyone asks about your coins, I am going to be clear they should steer far far away from them. For their wallets - fiat and Bitcoin - sake.

oh the joy of communicating with Mopar  

They're indeed generic because I made them to be. They're designed to be used with the Mary Ola / Puerto Rico ½ oz silver rounds and you turn the hologram so, whatever crypto you build the keys for, is located at 12oclock of the hologram. They were specifically made for the Cryptobugs group for educational building physical wallets, because I realized no one knew how to do it. The Mary Ola is supposed to be redeemed and rebuilt over and over again. You know the whole point of using peer to peer transactions. The more people that learn and know how to build, verify, and redeem the better. Especially in a time of government surveillance and control.

I like the Casascius hologram design and so do a lot of other people. There is nothing wrong with the CryptoBug or Caribbean Treasures Holograms.  They were designed to show QR codes and not first digits. They can't be confused for a Casascius hologram, because they say something completely different. Using a QR code makes it very easy to verify, on the spot, if the public address is funded or not. No 3rd party needed or website like the Casascius pieces. I like to just go straight to the blockchain and verify.  
Think about it though. Mike wanted us to build and rebuild his pieces. Why do you think he made the Aluminum blanks and the 5 bitnickels? To sit in our safes? No. to build, trade and buy with these as intended. It is similar to the Crypto Freeze pieces that were built, but they won’t be as desirable as a aluminum casascius round with an almost perfect “Fake” hologram. (just saying).

Now it would be wrong if someone tried to take one of these Chinese hologram fakes and tried to pass it off as real.  I guarantee fakes are coming to the market 10x more in volume than the real Casascius pieces. Just like Mickey Mantle rookie replicas. Not everyone will be able to own one. So, the market will provide Casascius replicas, but everyone should be able to get a replica if they’d like. These coins will still be highly collectable when we are dead and gone. Just like I enjoy stacking $3 Gold pieces from the 1800’s. I also know $3 fakes coins exist, but I educate myself on items I intend to buy or have a buddy who is.  I guarantee the supply of fakes will meet the demand in the future. All we can do to protect others is to educate and provide material to show how to tell the difference. Part of that is building and redeeming often. Not just creating collectables to hide away from 99% of the population. At the end of the day though, or in 100 years, people will want something as close to the original as possible, because they won’t be able to afford 1.2 million for a real one. The won’t even be able to afford a redeemed blank because they will most likely be 6 digits. They are going to get replica rounds with replica holograms and love it.

I believe I found out about the replica/fake Casascius ones through BT. They're coming out of China. I'm sure there are probably more makers out there. When I find out about them, I will buy them so I'm always ahead of the curve and know what to look for. It’s those kinds of people that can write the book and the experts use to guide them.

When I get DIY holograms, I use them. That’s what you do with DIY holograms. I don’t know what huge profits you speak of, because I haven’t ever sold one made by someone else.  I do however price my items very high online, not because I want that amount, but because I don't want them to sell. It’s an easy way to see the current market price because people send you offers. It allows me to stay updated on current prices by collecting offers people are willing to spend. I have a lot of people ask me current prices because this is an easy method that works. After 20 people offer, I have a nice idea of what items will sell for. If a deal is good or bad. If the risk is worth it. Prices on BT isn’t the price in other markets.

I don’t know why everyone wants to retire casascius rounds after they have been peeled and redeemed? Most the redeemed ones I have were purchased from people that didn’t see the value in the numismatics. Sometimes its not about the money, its about an idea that can’t be stopped. I hope Casascius rounds are still being used after a 1000 years. LFG!!!!

Why can’t we build a physical bitcoin that circulates in our community for goods and services? That actually moves between hands. Stay tuned for the next Caribbean Treasures territory pieces 😉 And they will probably have a hologram inspired by Casascius because I love them. 😉 I’ll drink your tears for breakfast Mopar!  

I would not call them generic in any means in that they are specifically modeled after the cas holo - the sizes and the wording may be different but it is neither generic or original.

As you have made several that copy the cas holo - are you the one responsible for the fake cas holos or do you know who is?

I know you have a tendency to use other coinmaker's holograms on coins and then selling the coins with huge premiums. Not sure if the makers of the coins would appreciate their holograms, designed for their coins and with their names on them are being used to sell knock offs - sorry "rebuilds".  Have you ever thought to make your own original hologram vs copying/using others?

Having been the head of your local numismatic group, I am amazed that you would not find this to actually be detrimental to the numismatic value of the coins.

Perhaps the chance of high profits selling to people who have no clue that they are being ripped off is too great.

I didn’t say he does. But would it kill him to spend 5 seconds adding a link to this page to his website? There’s a lot of people who aren’t knowledgeable about these coins who could easily be fooled (have been fooled and will continue to be fooled) and this page could very much be of help.  Simple as that.

As for owing people something, have to wonder how much bitcoin he collected from leaving his aluminum coins for sale for several years after shutting down his shop.  I know I lost .39btc that way. I’m not looking for anything, just making a point.

It would simply be the moral thing to do by adding this thread to his page imo.

Wow that stabbed ICG piece is a great example to have. Do you know anyone who has an examples for sale thats slabbed?

The CryptoBugs and Caribbean Treasures holograms are obviously different and are not fake or replicas. The artwork is inspired by Casascius for sure. As all physical crypto pieces are. 😄 If you'd like better photos just ask.

The CryptoBugs pieces is 23mm and was made to teach other "Crypto Bugs" how to build their own physical crypto coins. It is generic so any crypto wallet builder can use it to fund the DIY Mary Ola silver wallets. You can build Btc, eth, Ltc, xmr, xrp, DASH, Doge....ect. up to 11 different varieties. They are all listed on the backside of the silver round.  Very rare pieces. Some of the alts are only funded once or twice. You can tell which ones have been built by manufacturer by matching serial number on hologram with "CT" hand stamp. All others. Are DIY built.

The Caribbean Treasures holograms are 26mm and will be used for rebuilds. The public key will be easily seen in the transparent window as a qr code. These aren't sold to the public.

ICG slabbed this FAKE Casascius hologram (on a real Cas blank) in a yellow educational slab.

The differences are quite obvious when you know what to look for.

---

Other very similar holograms:

I buy a lot of Casascius items for clients and felt the need to do a deeper dive. I found that if you don't have a good loop with you it's hard to see the micro engraving 'casascius", but its very easy to see the text differences on each hologram.

Notice the fake hologram is more golden and my eye is always drawn the the "B". The replica has different size openings in the "B" the bottom one is smaller. Its easy to see even if your eyes aren't that good. The "N" has more of a webbing between the lines on the replica compared to the original.

Also when its peeled it creates the honeycomb shapes.

True. But they still need to be made aware and to be informed. As you stated they are often not knowledgable enough - they really should hire authenticators who have the knowledge - either way there are multiple moving parts and it hasn’t been weeks since they came in hand. It was weeks ago when they were seen but were never sent to us until very recently.

As I’ve been saying for years now, grading services aren’t authentication services and the people working at these companies are nowhere near informed enough to be close to as good at spotting a fake as most of the community members here. It was always a false sense of security. As the community now seems to be realizing, grading can even be bad for the coins for many reasons… I look forward to seeing the results of this long write up of the newly discovered Casascius concerns.

No one is sitting on the details for weeks - they are being compared to actual coins, details being written up, shared with grading houses, samples being slabbed in order to be shared.

It is all being brought together to be properly presented.

I don’t think Mike owes anybody anything. They were cheaply made coins in the beginning which are now worth a great deal so common sense should point towards fakes being available at some point. What concerns me now is that apparently people are aware of fakes being made widely available but are sitting on the “details” for weeks. I’d be very careful of buying Casascius coins at the moment, especially from alt accounts of the effected users…

I still haven’t seen any real info about this recent threat, so what should Mike even post?  As far as I’m aware the alibaba fakes are distinguishable from the originals. Has this changed? Why delay on providing info? Something smells fishy to me.

it will be posted soon. believe some of the details are being put together.

Just search alibaba hard enough... I think (?) ..   

Aww hell, I thought you guys were gonna bring up the fake casascius holos that people are rebuilding coins with....

Edit to add:  Yes, grading would break the chain imo.  nubbins would agree.

Turns out nubbins was right. Also, anything graded is technically null of any provenance yes?

I will check in to this.


@Mike Caldwell, man, please post this on your website. I know you’ve probably got your reasons for not doing so, but the truth is you’re literally going to end up costing people countless dollars by not doing so.

Please be mindful that people still use your website all the time. You left your sales live for the aluminum coins for I believe at least a couple years. I sent you a payment for a bag. I knew you had shut down, but figured maybe you were still selling those. I remember thinking “I’ll buy a bag, and if I don’t get one it’s whatever it’s only $60 (rough estimate of .39BTC at the time. That was now a $7,500 mistake. It’s completely my fault and should have reach out to you before and after, but I was dumb and lazy at the time. I have to imagine you got notified when sales were made. Your address generator, payment submission etc was still fully operational at the time.  

My point here is please be more mindful of other people. I know you’re wealthy beyond your wildest dreams and are sick of this hobby etc, but that shouldn’t mean you can’t help out a little.

How much longer do we have to wait to hear about this new Casascius threat? There are still people selling them here so a delay could end up costing members of the community greatly. I’d hate for more people to get ripped off as a result of a delay is propagating information. So share the information and we can all be on alert for great deals that may not be so great in reality.

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