Chinese Sellers, Afghanistan Currency, and Etsy

I recently bought some Afghanistan currency from a Chinese Seller on Etsy. I didn't realize I was buying from a Chinese seller until after the product arrived...the address was California. I've heard sketchy things about Etsy so I've stayed away from them, too. However, they had the best price on Afghani currency so I gave them a try.

Question #1 : Can currency sold by a Chinese seller be trusted to be authentic? Is there anyway to tell?

Question #2: I placed my order and received my purchase fine...but now I haven't been able to reach the Etsy.com website for over a week. Is anyone else having this problem? Did they get hacked...or maybe go out of business?

https://www.etsy.com/

 

Question #1...I'd compare to pictures of real examples and see if anything looks off....also, what was the feedback of the Chinese seller? I've bought from a few (on eBay, not etsy though) and everything has been fine

Question #2...I was able to load the website just now from your link

In general, isn't the currency you bought fairly inexpensive? Now they do fake almost everything (even common wheat cents) but I think the odds are in your favor that the currency is real.

You can also post the picture and ask for opinions on CoinTalk (just authentication) and I'm sure it would be fine. I'll even post it for you if you want.

 

I use a VPN and some sites (Etsy, included) don't respond to anonymous IP addresses (mystery solved!).

Here's the packet as I received it. I haven't opened it. yet...

 

Here's what the notes look like (Seller's pictures)...

 

The notes seem to be fine (as near as I can tell). It's hard to trust the Chinese with all the other counterfeits they spew. I would never have bought these had I known they were from a Chinese seller...just on principle.

 

I hear you and generally agree. It’s unfortunate but the counterfeit reputation has been earned and it hurts the honest sellers over there.

The last coin I bought from China was several years ago for one of my Austrian sets. The seller there had the best price and no one in the US had one available at the time. I did buy a box to hold NGC slabs early in 2020 from China (cheapest price at the time) but it never arrived (nor did the supposed replacement the seller sent). I haven’t ordered anything else since.

 

I bought some Afghani money recently for two (2) reasons...

1. I didn't have any Afghani money and both the notes and coins are quite beautiful!

2. There is some non-zero probability that the Taliban could destroy all the Afghani money and replace it with coins/notes depicting the virtues of the Taliban. Even still, there are probably enough existing coins/notes outside the country to not make a difference...but you never know! I bought five (5) sets of coins, too. The notes and coins were less than $40...so no big loss.

 

They do have purty stuff but it's basically worthless counterfeit or not.

 

Yeah...but I wanted it. It will remind me of the Summer of 2021.

The bank's name is interesting. It reminds me of being in Baltimore and looking for "Da Walmart".

 

Always reminded me of Chicago and Da Bears.