Report the "Gold Flag" fiasco

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What about privy-marked Silver Maple Leaf coins?

As-issued from the Royal Canadian Mint. The privy-marks are NOT after-market alterations performed by people looking to make a few bucks.

Well just to rebuttal the brick hunter statement. First the brick hunters find a suspected range and than the BOC confirms those ranges. There has been many situations where someone has claimed that they found a range but the Bank of Canada did not confirm the suspected range. So in short this leaves little to no room for bias.

Careful on that one, my friend. The Bank of Canada has remained quiet on insert ranges. They have not confirmed any insert ranges directly, aside from a single group of FEP notes. Even then, the range itself was not confirmed, merely the existence of some notes "printed at the beginning of the note order which were set aside to be used as replacement notes."

Insert ranges are deemed "confirmed" when inserts of similar numbers were found by several independent brick searchers whose data is collaborated.

Reaaally, my apologies. Hmm I thought different, evidently I’m wrong  

I guess people do collect fakes, forgeries, overprints, and notes with defacement (stampings on them).   Whether that will be a new "trend" in collecting time will tell.  

I won't be betting on it.

A note with a famous person's signature on it is another matter altogether (some collectors prefer a note with some history or pedigree)

A forum member reported a 1979 "33" $5 test note stamped with "Where's Willy?" which would be collectible (since so few test notes were issued and they are --after all -- extremely rare with a unique serial #), and it apparently is still floating around in circulation (if you believe the website).  I suppose every collector is different.  I will take a clean pressed note (lightly) over one that's got writing, tears, or stains on it -- but it should be rare. 

I put a 04 BER note that was in flawless crisp condition back into circulation before I knew how scarce even the 2004 BER notes were.  But it was stamped with the "Where's Willy" ink, and to me, its only worth face value.  If I had it in my collection now...I'm sure I'd be fretting about how to ditch it.  Maybe that's my "weakness" as a collector -- but it hasn't cost me anything to be selective (and it usually pays off in the long run).

The "Gold Flags" will continue to be "dumped" on the internet (and sold to the uninformed).  You won't see any of these sullied notes sold at shows, dealers, or live auctions.

I think this only proves that meeting a dealer, going to shows, and networking with fellow collectors is an activity that's priceless.  Information is key....

Gold flag notes (and the polar bear phoney) are exploiting people's lack of knowledge.  It is a deliberate addition to the note: true. Applied by a non-BOC party: true.
When someone comes out with these and is demanding such a large premium for them  right off the bat, you know the motive can only be simply that, profit.  Profit by way of exploitation.  Turning lead into gold, but perhaps fools gold.

Brick research and insert notes: Need to be collaborated by several reliable sources. Countless hours of work go into this, providing the entire collecting body with information that they can learn from, in regards to the process of printing notes and replacing them and so forth.  Comparing the two is apples to oranges.  Brick hunters and insert ranges were not designed to exploit, rather they came about as a result of trying to educate ourselves on what the heck the BOC was doing.  As a result, we have insert ranges (some being quite scarce).  
Hudson

  I purchased a bunch of notes together and a "gold flag" was included, but I had never heard of the issue until much after my purchase.   Very sad because the note it was printed on was nice and crisp. I don't even remember who I bought it from. I guess we should hold onto to these notes as a reminder of the evil that men do! Such greed!!
Donna

Donna, consider the flag note as "giftware". A rather neat item with no bearing on the note's being collectable. As long as you didn't pay too much, mark it as a lesson learned. It is one of several notes that are printed/altered after the fact. A great piece for display to show the less informed.

Rick

Here is the description on a current gold flag auction:

     
      Description                   
UP FOR BIDS ARE ONE OF EACH LEGAL TENDER 1967 CENTENNIAL ONE DOLLAR BILL WITH THE MYSTERIOUS GOLD FLAG "OVERPRINT" AND THE 1986 TWO DOLLAR BILL WITH THE GOLD BEAR "OVERPRINT". THESE BILLS WERE OVERPRINTED BY SOMEONE (NOT ME) AND WERE NEVER AUTHORIZED BY THE BANK OF CANADA BUT THEY ARE AUTHENTIC CANADIAN BANK NOTES AND THEY ARE IN UNC MINT CONDITION. MYSTERIOUS THEY ARE AND WOULD MAKE A GREAT ADDITION TO ANY COLLECTION. FINAL SALE ONE OF EACH ONLY. THANKS.

What?! The Gold Bear overprint is not mysterious too??

Be sure to watch out next year for those "mysterious" 1973 $1 notes with a "mysterious" Gold Loonie overprint ...

I'm looking for one of those mysterious 1867 1967 centennial notes with the mysterious asterisk overprint    .

I'm looking for one of those mysterious 1867 1967 centennial notes with the mysterious asterisk overprint    .

Forget the Centennial notes...if someone could add a convincing mysterious asterisk to a note wouldn't they choose to apply the mysterious asterisks to an UNC mysterious 1954 $5 Devil's Face?  Then it would be worth a mysterious $12,000!  Or they could get even more money by applying an asterisk to only one side and create a one-of-a-kind, mysterious, 1954 $5 Devil's Face Replacement "Missing Asterisk" error note...

I'm waiting for the "Rare Error" auction with a centennial $1 bill with the "missing gold flag" error!!!!  

Hey, I've got one of those!  Wanna buy it?  I also have some rare 1986 $2 bills missing the polar bear...

Now when are we going to see those rare inverted maple leaf errors where the gold maple leaf is stamped upside-down, or even stamped on the back of the note?  

I saw 2 gold leaf '67 notes being auctioned on eBay this weekend, but at least the sale of these notes has slowed to a crawl.  

YEAH!  :exclamation

(The notes are still being auctioned but at least the hyperbole (& over-inflated prices) seem to have abated)

Information is empowering!

See how the CPMF can be a powerful medium? Congrats all!

James

One is up on E Bay now. With 2 hours left to go, price is USD $13. A far cry from the $50 plus a month or so ago. I've sent the current high bidder a message a link to the review done up by bwjmackie. Although we were able to seriously reduce the market value of these things, they are not going to go away.

 [smiley=beer.gif]

There won't be any "Gold Flags" at the Torex  

Anyway--the idea was to raise public awareness of the hyperbole many sellers were using to promote what BOC dubs as a "novelty item"  If people want to spend that kind of dough on something uncollectible by paper money collectors I guess its their business!  As some on the forum here have suggested -- maybe they will increase in value by their notoriety  -- but their origin/their quality is no long UNC nor of interest to most in this community.