Tips from people with Cascasious coins

[TommyBitcoin]

Hey there fellow collectors! 

I am fairly new at collecting physical crypto coins, and I've come to enjoy it   

Someone locally has contacted me regarding a collection of Cascasious coins.  I've checked the uberbills site, and all are still loaded.

Any telltale signs it is counterfeit and if the hologram has been tampered with?   Or any other potential scams or legal issues in dealing with coins?

Thanks!

[OgNasty]

Hey there fellow collectors!  

I am fairly new at collecting physical crypto coins, and I've come to enjoy it    

Someone locally has contacted me regarding a collection of Cascasious coins.  I've checked the uberbills site, and all are still loaded.

Any telltale signs it is counterfeit and if the hologram has been tampered with?   Or any other potential scams or legal issues in dealing with coins?

Thanks!

The hologram will have a honeycomb look to it if it has been compromised.

Like this:

[Fortify]

As far as I know there are no counterfeit Casascius coins around so far. Started to see "makeshift" Casascius coins on places like ebay, that use a much cheaper aluminium version with unofficial holograms but they are easily distinguishable from the originals.

Maybe a year ago I remember seeing someone using some sort of needle, possibly combined with heat or other chemicals, to tease open a hologram and reapply it with minimal damage? Forgotten how successful the attack was but it got some media attention. In theory they could steal the bitcoin after selling the coin if they had the key, but there is no evidence of this happening.

[Mitchell]

I was recently shown this fake Casascius coin. It looks pretty convincing to me.

EDIT: I've removed markings from the seller to make it harder for scamming scum to get these.

[TookDk]

--snip
Maybe a year ago I remember seeing someone using some sort of needle, possibly combined with heat or other chemicals, to tease open a hologram and reapply it with minimal damage? Forgotten how successful the attack was but it got some media attention. In theory they could steal the bitcoin after selling the coin if they had the key, but there is no evidence of this happening.

You must thinking of Defcon 21.
There was evidence indeed, but you need to look closely "slight visible damage". 

reports from DefCon 21 that the tamper-proof holographic seal on Casascius physical #Bitcoins has been defeated.

https://twitter.com/stits/status/363507484893257728

Waiting to learn of the method.

Spoke with him today and he was pretty open with me on what he did, and expressed a willingness to test some improvements I have in mind.

Existing coins are safe, of course: one had to have physical access to your coin to compromise it, and as I understood it, there was slight visible damage in the process.  Remember, this guy attacks stuff like this as a hobby, it is not as though everyone out there will suddenly succeed in attacking their coins.

The rimming I do on the 1 BTC silver may be more challenging and he says he will be getting one tomorrow to attack.  With what I know of the attack, making laser marks on the hologram will make it far more difficult.

[Hellot]

If you are putting a significant amount of money at risk, you should hire someone with experience handling these coins to come along and help evaluate the coins.  This particular forum is filled with experts on these coins and this forum has a pretty reliable trust system built into it that you can use to evaluate the trustworthiness of the person offering the services.  I live in the SF bay area and am willing to look at coins in the area to help evaluate.  Other people like Blazed are highly trusted and offer escrow services, I would trust him to evaluate any coin for me but I wouldn't trust him to give it a numismatic rating. <3 Blazed

Some things to consider if you go it alone:
 
If this is a large stash of all the same coin type, I would encourage you to discuss the possibility of peeling a random one of your choosing in the batch before buying.
 
Post high quality pictures here before buying for the community to evaluate.  We are good at sniffing these things out.
 
Good luck!

[wheelz1200]

All things aside, your more likely to get ripped off from price then with counters at this point.  Everyone has a good understanding of prices, if you want to post the lot we can probably come up with a good negotiating range for you.

[monkeynuts]

Exactly the above.

Check funding
Check for any signs of tampering
Look at the coin conditions to see if there is any damage that will reduce the value (higher graded coins generally will attract a higher premium)

Some coins have a greater premium than others
Double error 1 BTC errors
1 BTC error 'Day 1' coins
Series 2 silver halfs
10 BTCs
All carry high premiums due to rarity or desirability

2013 0.5 and 1.0 brass significantly less so

The forum will give you a fair range for what you are looking at

Never be worried about asking for help. All of the folks who have posted above, or who have been mentioned, know their stuff. If you say where you are from, I am sure there will be a trusted coiner who would help you out (they would be sniffing out a deal themselves !)

I also havent seen any fakes that would pass a preliminary look. Either hologram or font has given away the only 1 I saw - a 25 coin. Even without the discrepancies, I knew that one was fake, as at the time I had the original !!

As with all face to face transactions, do it in a public place. Finally, if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is. If its a good deal today, then its a good deal tomorrow, dont get rushed into it if something doesnt feel right

[TommyBitcoin]

Thanks for all of the advice so far. 

The hologram will have a honeycomb look to it if it has been compromised.

Thanks, Og, I will look out for the honeycomb look.

Yes, the deal does seem too good to be true...If anyone is in the Boston area, wanna check out some coins with me 

Just as an example of how it seems too good to be true:  she wants to sell some coins at the btc price only.  So, a 2011  1 BTC solid brass, and she only wants 1 btc. 

She says it was from her ex for her son.  So she just wants the money and doesn't want to deal with the hassle of ebay.    

Another concern is her ex finding out and claiming the coins were his. 

[TookDk]

Just as an example of how it seems too good to be true:  she wants to sell some coins at the btc price only.  So, a 2011  1 BTC solid brass, and she only wants 1 btc. 

Not that unlikely taking the price of bitcoin into consideration.

[miffman]

Just as an example of how it seems too good to be true:  she wants to sell some coins at the btc price only.  So, a 2011  1 BTC solid brass, and she only wants 1 btc. 

Not that unlikely taking the price of bitcoin into consideration.

I dunno, seems a bit weird to me. She can easily charge 1.1. If she wants 1btc then she should redeem it.

[TookDk]

Just as an example of how it seems too good to be true:  she wants to sell some coins at the btc price only.  So, a 2011  1 BTC solid brass, and she only wants 1 btc. 

Not that unlikely taking the price of bitcoin into consideration.

I dunno, seems a bit weird to me. She can easily charge 1.1. If she wants 1btc then she should redeem it.

Not all are trading casascius coins and use bitcoin on a regular basis, those people see "743 USD" and would be happy with that amount if getting cash in hand, especially if they got the coin cheaper or for free.

[wheelz1200]

Just as an example of how it seems too good to be true:  she wants to sell some coins at the btc price only.  So, a 2011  1 BTC solid brass, and she only wants 1 btc. 

Not that unlikely taking the price of bitcoin into consideration.

I dunno, seems a bit weird to me. She can easily charge 1.1. If she wants 1btc then she should redeem it.

My guess is she does not know how, if they are real and doesnt want to mess with it.  I know if my wife wanted to sell my cas coins she wouldnt know the first thing about peeling and redeeming.

[monkeynuts]

Just as an example of how it seems too good to be true:  she wants to sell some coins at the btc price only.  So, a 2011  1 BTC solid brass, and she only wants 1 btc. 

Not that unlikely taking the price of bitcoin into consideration.

I dunno, seems a bit weird to me. She can easily charge 1.1. If she wants 1btc then she should redeem it.

My guess is she does not know how, if they are real and doesnt want to mess with it.  I know if my wife wanted to sell my cas coins she wouldnt know the first thing about peeling and redeeming.

In that case, I will offer your wife face value for your collection 

[TommyBitcoin]

Thanks to Hellot and Wheelz for advising me to peel a random 1 or 2.

I think I will do that.

I just talked to her on the phone and she does sound legit.  We are meeting at a police station to exchange cash and coins (her brother is a cop).

I think she just sees them as worth a lot of money, and she wants to make a quick sale.

And I will cross my fingers and keep you guys updated with pics

[TookDk]

Thanks to Hellot and Wheelz for advising me to peel a random 1 or 2.

I think I will do that.

I just talked to her on the phone and she does sound legit.  We are meeting at a police station to exchange cash and coins (her brother is a cop).

I think she just sees them as worth a lot of money, and she wants to make a quick sale.

And I will cross my fingers and keep you guys updated with pics

Michael1 just wrote a guide on redeeming coins:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1513929.0

I would say that you are pretty good to go if you bring a laptop with an offline version of bitaddress.org to convert the Mini private key to a QR, then just sweep the key with Mycelium using your android phone's camera. Its very easy and fast with this method. Should not take more than a few minutes to validate.

By principal should you also check that the corresponding public key generated by bitaddress is on this list: https://www.casascius.com/fulllist.txt

Edit:
You could actually skip the sweeping part. If you input the private key into bitaddress.org and the corresponding public key appears on fulllist.txt, then would you know that the private key could only have been made by Casascius. Would be nice to also see that the address is still funded too on the blockchain.

[wheelz1200]

Well shit im pulling for you tommy.  Dont know about anyone else but ive been waiting for something like this to happen, keep us informed and let us know how it goes.

[TookDk]

Well shit im pulling for you tommy.  Dont know about anyone else but ive been waiting for something like this to happen, keep us informed and let us know how it goes.

@Tommy How many coins are approximate talking about?

And good luck from me too.

[TommyBitcoin]

Well shit im pulling for you tommy.  Dont know about anyone else but ive been waiting for something like this to happen, keep us informed and let us know how it goes.

@Tommy How many coins are approximate talking about?

And good luck from me too.

Thanks Wheelz and TookDk.  Tbh, it is making me nervous.  we are trying to set up a day and time. 

As for the number of coins, it is hard to tell based on the pics, but I counted 8.

As for waiting for something like this to happen, can anybody speak to this?  With the idea that this is not a hoax, is this a once every 5, 10 years?  Longer? 

[Hellot]

Even when Casascius sold them they were sold for above face value to cover costs.  Depending on the coin, you could buy them today and sell them here for more than double face value in a heart beat.  That's easy money.