The fight against fakes has taken a significant step forward with the passage of the Collectible Coin Protection Act in the House of Representatives before congress left for summer recess.
Formerly H.R. 1849, the current was reintroduced by Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) to resolve a technical issue. All of the co-sponsors for H.R. 1849 co-sponsored H.R. 2754 with the addition of Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE).
On July 30, H.R. 2754 was brought to the floor of the House of Representatives on the suspension calendar. Bills on the suspension calendar are those that are considered non-controversial and have broad support. For this bill, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) was the floor manager and moved to suspend the rules and pass this bill. After a brief introduction, Rep. Butterfield spoke on behalf of the bill.
If you want to read what was said, it begins near the bottom of the second column of page H5147 in the Congressional Record. [PDF]
H.R. 2754 passed the House of Representatives on a unanimous voice vote.
The bill will be sent to the Senate but will not be considered until after the summer break.
It is not too early to contact your senator to ask for their support. Just go to senate.gov and use the pull down menu in the upper-right corner of the page to select the state you live or work. Please take the time to contact both of your senators. In fact, if they hold town hall meetings in your area, you can use that opportunity to
Collectors who live in North Carolina’s First District, can send email to Rep. Butterfield to thank him for his help. Everyone else can send him a quick note on Twitter to @GKButterfield to show your appreciation!
You can read the Collectible Coin Protection Act and track the bill’s progress at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2754.
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Unfortunately, this Act is only a band-aid remedy at best, even if it is actively enforced, if ever. First, in is only “enforceable” with consequence to prosecution within the United States. As the bill describes, the actual source of manufacturing counterfeit coins, fake 3rd party grading holders, and labels is of foreign origin. It is unfortunate that the bill’s sponsor chose to single out China as the only source for fake coins. With the rise,rapid development and sophistication of 3D printing and the free availability of the technology world-wide it is now possible for counterfeiting operations to thrive anywhere, in any nation.
First, I would never purchase a coin (graded or not) directly from anyone outside the USA.
Second, this bill will ratchet up the consequences for coin resellers in the USA. EBay is a huge facilitator of coin sales, and they don’t want to get dragged into anything that impacts their image (such as lawsuits).
Third, ANYTHING that protects hobbies (any hobby) from counterfeit products is good!