I have heard of some collectors of gold counterfeit coins like the Gold Indian series. What is it about these older counterfeits that attract the attention of some coin collectors? I know it's a hush, hush subject but what it the deal? Sometimes the prices are almost as much as the spot price of gold. Are they made of real gold or not? Were they counterfeited by a famous person like Henning?
Yeah, that's what I thought but you would think that all the fake gold coins have already been bought up by now. Heck, sounds like someone could theoretically make money, if they were to get them cheap enough. I wonder if that's the only attraction?
Well it all depends who wants it. With the chinese counterfits becoming more detailed every day, and if you add the actual composition into the mix, it makes for a very good counterfit. I wouldn't doubt some of the gold counterfits out there pass weight and acid tests..
During the 1950's and 1960's there were a LOT of fake US gold coins coming out of the Middle East, especially Lebanon. They coins were typically die struck and were of full weight and fineness, sometimes a little more. Why? Because at the time US citizens could not own gold, but they could own pre-1933 US gold coins. Back in the US genuine pre-1933 us gold was selling for about two and a half to three times the bullion value (With gold at $35 an oz). So these were hot items to sell to tourists (Tourism in the middle east was pretty safe back then. Egypt was a bit dicey with a couple of military coups but for the most part they left Americans alone, it was a strictly internal problem.) The tourist were able to haggle the sellers down and get a great bargain, only double melt for coins that were three times melt back home! And even better deals for scarcer dates! Of course they didn't know they were fake. The counterfeiters got their money by buying gold at melt, striking the fakes and selling them for double melt, so why skimp on the gold and possibly have it detected. After all you are already making nearly 100% over cost. A lot of these counterfeits have been melted down over the years but there are still a lot of them out there. Back when ANACS started something like 80% of all the type II gold dollars and 3 dollar gold pieces they received were fake. it has gotten a lot better but still something like 25% of them are fakes. Back in the 1979/80 gold and silver boom Silvertowne bought THOUSANDS of gold type sets, the ones with the three gold dollar types the three dollar and the Liberty and Indian quarter, half, eagle and double eagles. Almost none of them had genuine type II dollars or three dollar coins. Many of the quarter and half eagles were fakes as well. These were all remnants of those middle east fakes from the 50's and 60's. (The quarter and half eagles are so prevalent because even at double melt, $5 or $10 was a good chunk of money in the 50's. Most tourists didn't want to shell out the $20 or $40 for the eagles or double eagles.) But since the quarter eagle and half eagle fakes are so common today they become a natural for someone who wants to put together a set of fake gold coins.
