Report the "Gold Flag" fiasco

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

A couple responses to the notes that I sent to some recent bidders:

thank you for imforming me please do not ship and refund paypal thank you

Thank you for the heads up up on this item.
By any chance have you been able to determine who is the original distributer or source of these bills?
I have had communication with a number of ebay members about this item and received different stories from many of them.
Thank you

Dear Sir
I appreciate your concern regarding the Bill with the Gold Flag overprints, I have done some investigateing myself and frankly i think these bills are even more unique then ever before.
These bills are authentic Bank Of Canada Issues that someone has overprinted the flag on which makes them in my estitmate even more valueble.
Thanks anyway.

I also just noticed that one gold flag $1 auction was ended early this afternoon!

The saga continues.

For anyone who wants to look back at old threads, here are some links:
http://www.cdnpapermoney.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1137900153/0#0
http://www.cdnpapermoney.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1122077129/0#0
http://www.cdnpapermoney.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1127782186/0#0
http://www.cdnpapermoney.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1131376598/0#0

A couple responses to the notes that I sent to some recent bidders:

Dear Sir
I appreciate your concern regarding the Bill with the Gold Flag overprints, I have done some investigateing myself and frankly i think these bills are even more unique then ever before.
These bills are authentic Bank Of Canada Issues that someone has overprinted the flag on which makes them in my estitmate even more valueble.
Thanks anyway.

"estitmate" indeed!  Knowing that there really ARE boobs like this out there, I am almost tempted to go ahead with the idea I toyed with a couple months ago...i.e. getting a Toucan Sam stamp and making a set of Toucan Sam Journey notes with the $5 to the $100 bill.  Sure, the serial numbers would be different , but I would of course add to each note a matching set number (as is done with Specimen notes).

Brent, I do hope you gave this person the hot tip that he could vastly improve the value of his portfolio by acquiring an authentic Bank of Canada 1986 $2 issue that someone has overprinted a polar bear on??   :question :-?  :question

 :exclamation :exclamationI just thought of something!  Forget Toucan Sam...I would have to pay royalties to the Froot Loops people.  The Loonie coin will be celebrating its 20th anniversary next year!  I am going to release my OWN limited-edition run of 1973 $1 notes with an image of our Loonie coin stamped on them and the caption "1987-2007".

Oh, sh*t!! Did I just let my million-dollar idea slip out?  

Anyone else find it somewhat amusing (in a going to the dentist and getting your wisdom teeth ripped out of your skull by a deranged dentist on speed) kinda way, that while there is much to do about people dropping $20-70 on ebay for 1967 notes with lil gold flags on em, any post that points out a blatant rip in any other area of this fine hobby, be it on ebay or otherwise and usually involving much more signifigant sums, gets locked faster than a randy maiden's chastity belt?

I'm thinking that in a year or two many of the people that have been getting raped by "trustworthy expert paper money dealers n collectors" over the past little while are going to be sorely upset they didn't get stuck with a fistful of 1967 Notes with gold flags on em instead of the over-graded crap they are going to lose their asses on.

Perhaps something that you're failing to realize is that nobody is making any remarks about the sellers of these notes, and nobody has posted any links to the auctions so as to make commenting about any particular person any easier. This is about the notes, and only about the notes. Thus, it is within the definition of what is encouraged here on the forums: discussion about the notes.

Even at the tail end of the guide that I wrote on eBay, I say the following:

(Note: There are several eBay sellers selling these items. Many of them do not know or realize the true story behind these notes. This guide is not meant to discredit any seller or comment negatively about any seller. This is about the notes, and only about the notes.)

PS: Vote for the guide at the bottom of this page: [size=14]CLICK HERE![/size][/url]

What might be more productive than trying to point out bad sellers on eBay or elsewhere is for another guide to be posted to eBay educating collectors on how to grade notes and the pitfalls to watch out for (e.g. pressed notes, trimmed notes, small or blurry pictures in eBay listings, vague descriptions, fraudulent "error" notes).

The best way to defend the collecting community is to take an offensive approach through education rather than just warning novice collectors about this or that seller who is selling an overgraded note.

Are there any experts out there (which I am not) who could step up to this task as Brent has done with the Gold Flag/Polar Bear notes and post a guide on grading and buying from eBay?  Once collectors know how to grade what they are bidding on, then any sellers who continue to sell overgraded junk will only incur negative feedback on themselves as the market becomes more sophisticated.

The gold flag notes and polar bear notes should be likened to a coins that is counterstamped by the seller's initials. The value drops to face. There is nothing neat about ruined notes, and these are ruined. Face value is all they are worth, and one may have difficulty actually spending them.

Good article by Brent, fairly open in thought and not biased. I would like to add that anyone buying this trash is likely to have another piece of garbage. One gets what he pays for.

Rick

Man BWJM, you sure are sensitive. What are you? Nine? Grow up for chrissakes.  You did something good and it's helping people and that's commendable. However to say it isn't about the seller is hypocritical. The people you are emailing are too stupid to figure out who's item they're bidding on? lol. Anyhow relax big fella.

Venga, people don't want to know that their steal of a deal is an over-graded piece of crap 90% of the time and that certainly isn't restricted to ebay. They see what they want to see and apparently they want to get screwed so they get screwed.  *shrug*
Just read a 3rd party grading thread  

Travsy
Its not a matter of being over-sensitive.  CPMF is a public forum and as such there are certain rules of decorum, etiquette which should be followed.  Criticism of the notes, the practice of selling an item as authentic, etc, is much better then getting into a full blown battle with the seller.  I'm glad Brent is being very professional over this matter. It just means that he's covered his tracks.  Its what I've tried to do also.  Its only in this fashion that we as collectors can be united and beocme a bit political about unsavory practices.  Yes there are a lot of other unsavory/unethical activity that goes on in this
arena....but over-grading is hard to police, as is the other practices you mention.  I've been stung a few times, and once is too many times.  To give you an idea of how little protection there really is READ ON:
 
Here's another response I got from BOC's EDUCATION department (I emailed every department I could think of):

Thank you for your complaint about the selling of special Canadian bank
notes on eBay.
 
As you know, the Bank of Canada has never issued bank notes bearing gold
flags.  
 
The Bank of Canada does not support the sale of these novelty items.
 
The matter has been discussed with our legal department, as well as with
outside counsel.  We know of no violation of the Copyright Act or the
Criminal Code (that directly affects the Bank) and, as a result, there
is little we can do to prevent the sale of these items.  Prospective
purchasers of these items should always exercise due diligence when
bidding on any items.

A similar complaint to yours has been received in the past.  We had
contacted eBay at the time to voice our concern. I do not know what
became of this but I will endeavour to find out.

Thank you again for bringing this matter to our attention.

As you can see they say there is "no violation of the Copyright Act or the Criminal Code" and that
it once again falls on the onus of the purchasers to "exercise due dilligence" when bidding on
any item found on eBay.  

Some  Gold Flag bidders have thanked me for the warnings, others have been less positive.  Well at least they've been warned.

So now you understand why I started this thread and have encouraged any member that tunes into CPMF to
help in whatever way they can.  Big thanks again to Brent for his eBay Guide...VERY HELPFUL indeed!

James

Shocking! The Bank of Canada can do nothing about this?  I would have thought that stamping these images on banknotes would amount to defacing currency.  With the $2 Polar Bear notes, isn't there a copyright violation against the Royal Canadian Mint, the owner of the image on the $2 coin that is being stamped on the $2 bills?

As Travsy points out, one person was so dumb in their reply to Brent that they asked HIM to cancel their Paypal payment and not ship the notes?  :-?  Others think the "controversy" we are raising about these notes make them MORE valuable (i.e. more than the $50 USD that some of them have already sold for)?  

Maybe I SHOULD try selling 1973 $1 bills next year stamped with an image of our Loonie coin to celebrate its 20th anniversary.  Seems there are a lot of people on eBay who are dumb, are proud of being dumb, know they being ripped off and want to be ripped off.  I guess they figure the gold maple leaf on the 1967 $1 note "looks pretty" so that increases its value .  Luckily for these idiots, there is no shortage of sellers who are more than happy to fill the demand for such garbage!

For those that wondered about JOP counterstamped silver dollars. I think they are defaced, but these are widely collected. Crap added to notes defaces them, perhaps to the extent of making them no more than face value. I mentioned earlier, that printing, writing, or adding a cute sticker is not against the law, the currency act or copyright laws as far as I understand them. It is sort of a pity that people will buy trash and pay real money to get them.

I do not know the origin nor do I know any of the sellers or buyers. The ebay section was removed because if turned into a slam fest. Criticize the note, the selling methods, the legalities of it, but mention not the seller or eBay item. Be aware of slander and libel laws.

Rick

All Gold Flag auctions are now delisted from eBay!

The final seller sent me an email today saying he ended his auction early. No more auctions have been listed since the gold flag guide was posted. I believe we are finally making some progress on this issue. I hope that it is sustained.

Keep your eyes out for future auctions. This is by no means over yet.

congrats everyone who believe in the true beauty of a note and not the insulting/defacing of our great country.  I think it is now time to get off my soap box.  Thanks Brent

Polarbear

I knew it wouldn't last long. Another gold flag note has been listed (and reported)

Maybe if eBay gets enough complaints about the auctions, they might take some action. Thoughts?

I doubt it, Ebay most likely will not take action unless someone is listing something illegal or if they had a million complaints about the item. In total there has been say a 100 complaints about the gold flag issue which I do not think ebay is too concerned about. But if the writers of the 100 complaints keep complaining day in day out they might just get annoyed enough to do something We need to be persistent  

Bank of Canada calls the practice "fraudulent"

and the notes themselves -- "novelty items"

They said they were looking into it...

It makes me wonder if someone up high from the BOC is behind the scheme..

JB