Not sure what I have.....

Sometimes you can tell just by looking. The die is either too strong in the wrong place or too weak in one. The rims and reeding are another place to look. Sometimes details are wrong. Like the date or mint mark. I've seen fake SLQ,s with the S mint mark being the wrong style and upside down.

Magnet tests are a good indicator.

PCGS has an official guide to counterfeit detection. It's a must read I think. I always try to remember the seller knows more about the item for sale than I do.

gary

 

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I hope nobody thinks I don't believe they are fake. I only ask so I can tell in the future myself.

Thank you and I only paid $10 for the lot.

 

Thank you. This is very helpful.

 

$10 is not a bad price for that lot. I have been known to pay $10 for one coin like you have so I would have an example of a particular kind of counterfeit.

The best advice I can give you is to get education and experience. Learn what the genuine coins should look like. Learn how genuine coins were and are made. Learn how counterfeit coins were and are made. Go to coin shops and coin shows and look at hundreds and hundreds of genuine coins so you know what the genuine coins should look like. Once you have this knowledge and experience then it will be easier for you to spot fakes like these.

For example, like was pointed out above, the genuine Ellis Island coin was not dated 1906; it was dated 1986. That is a dead giveaway. Also, reeding was not used on Silver Dollars until the 1830s; Silver Dollars struck before 1804 (no Silver Dollars were struck from 1804 to 1835) have a lettered edge. If your 1800 Silver Dollar has a reeded edge that is a dead giveaway that it is counterfeit.

Now is a good time to start your counterfeit detection education. Read your Red Book. (You DO have a Red Book don't you?) Learn how coins were and are made. Learn what you can about detecting counterfeit coins. (ANA offers courses in Counterfeit Detection at their annual Summer Seminar. I have taken that course twice and highly recommend it.)

Good luck and don't take any plugged nickels.

 

Great advice. Thank you.

I picked these coins up from a local national in Afghanistan in 2009 stuffed them in my bag and forgot about them until two days ago when I was going through some boxes. Trying to find out about the coins has sparked an interest in me to start collecting. I do not have a Red Book yet, but I have seen it referenced at just about every turn so I will definitely be picking up a copy.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

The Red Book is a great source of information. However, I think you will find the best way to spot fakes like this is to look at a LOT of coins. Most collectors that have been around for decades, (boy that statement makes me feel old), don't realize it, but we have looked at tens of thousands of coins in person, and probably a million including pictures. Even from that your mind will start to develop images of real versus fake, and then if you study wear patterns and the like it becomes even clearer how to spot fakes. I guess what I am saying is I spotted these in half a second as fake, yet I had to think about WHY I knew they were fake, I just knew.

If you wish to collect coins, the best advice I can give is to LOOK AT COINS. Look at them close up, study them, learn how they were struck, etc. Knowing HOW a coin is made is valuable, since it will innately tell you how a coin could NOT be made, and therefor fake.

Long time readers please forgive me for repeating, but OP if you wish to get into coins I have an assignment. Buy a bag of circulated nickels. Buy a grading book and Red Book. Go through every nickel, grading each one and putting them into a appropriate grade pile. When done, review each pile to see if they are similar, and how did you do. If you like, when you are done, put the nickels back into the bank. All this exercise is designed to do is get you used to how to look up the coins in the redbook, how to assign grades based upon the grading book, and learn how the different degrees of wear are graded, and get you used to really LOOKING at coins up close. Its like the old "wax on, wax off" task, something you do not realize is doing you good until you instinctively learn how to do it.

Chris

 

Kentucky silver is not magnetic

 

I think that was sarcasm....

 

You mean I don't have at least the coins weight in silver?

 

There was a long article in the newspapers about a year ago about fake silver coins being sold to Americans in Afghanistan.

 

Not just coins! Almost every gemstone brought back is fake also. Beautiful rubies, emeralds, tourmaline, sapphires...all fake. Mostly Synthetics, or irradiated, heated, etc. natural stones Coins are a lot easier to tell.

Jim

 

But magnetic silver is just as real as the fabled red mercury of Soviet fame!