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Comment by psychotik | Hacker News Reader

Out of curiosity, how do you destroy a coin?

The easiest way to destroy the value of numismatic coin would probably be to clean it. A coin at the highest level of grading would be "destroyed" (lowered to a less valuable rating) by simply picking it up outside of its sealed, graded holder.

There are plenty of ways to destroy it physically (throw it in a forge, bend it with pliers, etc).

I'm a bit more concerned that a scammer wouldn't destroy the coin per se, but make a claim on authenticity, causing me to lose my money and also the coin.

Would it be trivial for someone to dispute the authenticity of the coin, receive PayPal's request for its destruction, photograph something that looked like a mangled coin, and then essentially get the coin for free?

Considering the amount of money to be made, I think it's reasonable. I present the following:

1) Get the original (say, $3000 coin) carefully out of the holder - then smash the holder with a hammer.

2) Find a replica of that year coin, which really is a fake, for $10-$50. Scratch it up, bend it, whatever.

3) Send the original coin back for grading to be certified with a new graded coin holder and serial number, to be sold for $3000.

Right which is what seems so illogical to me about this policy. I having little experience with coins could probably come up with that one pretty quickly. As well with the subject of this post a violin. I could easily go get a kids First Start violin for under $100 and smash it, take a photo and send it in. This to me seems like the most ill conceived business process ever dreamed up. Hell 20 minutes in Photoshop and I could destroy anything.

Heck, with ones made of precious metals you can even actually destroy them and still make a good buck selling the gold.

That's why PayPal insists on you destroying the counterfeit item and providing proof that you did.

Except that the destruction is far easier to prove than the counterfeitness of the item.

This is just the "kill them all and let God sort them out" mentality applied to property.

Yes, but as pointed out elsewhere, the "proof" is easily photoshopped.

Lets do this?! We could buy anything, dispute the validity of said item, send them pictures of the destruction (keeping the original) and PROFIT! All these years of collecting underpants have paid off.

I remember a year or three ago there was a story going around about Chinese scrap metal recyclers getting shipments of "destroyed" euro coins and reassembling them to pass off as intact money. Turns out at the time the official method to decommission the coins was to pop out the center piece.

So to answer your question: In some cases, not well enough. ;)

EDIT: source: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/euro_coin_recy...

A physics teacher of mine destroyed one in class by putting it in acid for an experiment.

Funny fact: at that time it was illegal in my country (France). This law has been abrogated since then to allow machines that crush coins to make souvenirs.

Traditionally, by leaving it on the train tracks.

I'm pretty sure it would blend...

I presume you could take a bolt cutters to it and cut it up?

Melting.

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