Featured Counterfeit Morgans: hands on with a high quality Chinese fake

Yea I noticed some of those, but given that die chips are well known on these it didn't mean much from the photos alone. These are certainly not cast coins so "bubbles" didn't seem to be an issue.

 

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My comment was in response to the comment made on one of the other posts.

One of the reasons I quote the comments of others is so readers won't get confused.

Chris

 

I'd like to congratulate you on this great, fake coin you purchased. I love how you did not give any diagnostics, except for the size and weight. I guess in the post you got some of the problems that are sticking out on the coin with a few adjustments it would even be better. Now that you have this good info in your hands, are you planning to sell it on ebay?

 

The only proof needed that this coin is fake is that it's a $5000 coin being sold for $53 from a Chinese source. Given these facts, under what set of circumstances would anybody think this is authentic?

 

Should sell good on ebay

 

Yes. The fact that I felt pressured to provide evidence that it is indeed a counterfeit should be the takeaway point - it's a testament to the quality of the fake.

I purchased it for educational purposes with the intent of sharing my experience here, and ultimately reporting the transaction, seller, and coin to the appropriate authorities as originally stated.

As far as I am concerned, providing $50 worth of business to a HQ counterfeiter in hopes of educating oneself and others, along with playing a little part in curbing the operation, is justifiable and completely worth it. If one thinks it's still immoral or wrong, that's his own prerogative.

 

That "proof" was not originally provided. I was compelled to provide such proof based on the skepticism that it was indeed INAUTHENTIC. Think about that...

You are drawing conclusions from evidence given after the fact.

 

In response to your straw man - if I were planning to sell it on eBay, why would I have created this thread in the first place?

Why? Where is this sacred tenet? I may be new here, but irregardless of the forum, your reasoning is non-sensical.

I’ve learned more in just reading the subsequent diagnoses provided by other members than I would have otherwise. Hopefully, others who comb through this thread do as well.

Anyone is more than welcome to use my images and provide a full write-up and diagnostic of what differentiates this coin from an authentic one.

In fact, that would be ideal…is that not the point of sharing information, in an open ended discussion section, with other members of a community?

 

I think your $53 was well worth it. I have knowingly purchased worse quality fakes for more in the past. Definitely a good post and a wake up call to how good the fakes are getting to be.

 

Yes it's a good fake and would pass as real very easy as seen here on the form

 

I kinda disagree on the idea of giving away too many diagnostics. In fact, this is something a counterfeiter always have his / her eyes open. To them, this is a perfect free education to improve on their product. On the other hand, we pay good money to TPGs only to see high quality counterfeits come back as not genuine.

While it's important to educate about counterfeits, this is getting to a point where too much information can come to bite us back.

I'm quite torn - if this 50 dollar coin will help to stop 100+ people on buying counterfeits, yes, it's worth it. But part of that 50 dollar is used to improve on quality. Very vicious cycle but it has to end somewhere, somehow.

 

50 dollar coin will help to stop people on buying no they can't tell if it's counterfeit with out the diagnostics this coin will pass with no problem
You can never share to much this is how you will learn the difference and stop the counterfeits
As for the counterfeiter they will all ways get better so sharing diagnostics is not the problem it's the solution to the problem

 

Dunno man... you really think that's enough proof?

 

I almost forgot....

 

The "CC" mint mark is in the wrong place and is the wrong shape for a genuine 1879-CC. The fields have a curvature when approaching the devices, which is a classic indication of a counterfeit. The edge reeding also looks suspect.

 

I disagree that revealing the diagnostics is a bad thing.

There's a $20 book available that tells any counterfeiter with a machine shop and some jeweler's tools how to produce deceptive counterfeits and what diagnostics to look for in lower-quality fakes. On top of that, there are probably 10's of thousands of pages of material available online already. Adding to it by discussing this piece in public benefits us (collectors) more than it benefits them (counterfeiters).

 

I can put my fortune on this that higher quality counterfeits are a sign to come and giving more details is an excellent education for counterfeiters to improve their products. You are more than welcome to review this thread 10 years later and see if this makes any sense. Have you not witnessed the rise in quality of counterfeits within the last five years?

To illustrate a famous example more than a decade ago with Chinese vase, Ming Dynasty (could have been Qing or Song Dynasty) vases are worth a good fortune. By then, experts already had trouble telling the difference between genuine and counterfeit examples by the color and artwork alone. These were often sent off with experts who have better knowledge of their mineralogy. Experts still found it easy to tell until one of the experts decided to spill the beans and reveal that some vases had kaolin and other specific type of clay minerals and could only be found in certain areas. Obviously counterfeiters didn't fail to pick up that information and now it made the lives of experts a lot harder to tell.

With any action, there's always benefits, risks and consequences. The benefit in the short term is that it will educate the general public of such counterfeits. The risk is that within that group of general public, counterfeiters are out there to improve their products. The consequence is in the medium term where much higher quality counterfeits appear to fool the general public. Over the long term, this will make it a lot harder to tell the differences.

If I am not wrong five years ago, counterfeits could easily be distinguished if they were a) magnetic b) had mushy details c) wrong weight d) odd color e) terrible edging. In a matter of such short time, all of them have significantly improved. Can you be certain that in the next decade to come, you can confidently tell the differences between counterfeits to genuine examples? Does it have to come to a stage where you must send it to a lab for radioactive dating or mass spectrometry to give experts better confidence?

I am against counterfeits and am happy to point out obvious points. However with the rise of such high quality counterfeit, I strongly believe it poses a much higher risk in the long term to point out what is wrong. I for certain will not put my name in aiding counterfeiters to produce better quality 'product'.

 

How would you propose to educate the majority of the collectors if you do not give up the diagnostics of a fake coin?

As for the counterfeiters, there's been great counterfeits of US and WW coins even before the Chinese started to make them. The Chinese and Eastern Europeans are producing them in mass quantities. And yes they're getting better every time. I do not think forums like this one make them get better or benefit them in any way.

By sharing the knowledge, you can stop collectors from buying them. It becomes very dangerous if only a select few people know if it's a counterfeit or not. Why? Because you would have to depend upon this select group to authenticate the coins. Yes, we do have this select group as it is now (grading companies) but they do not dominate the well informed collector who can tell the difference between genuine and counterfeit. Many reasons why: studying the coins and sharing the knowledge when a fake does come up.

Counterfeiters will always try to get better. The same way we study coins they do the same thing. We're not talking about operations that are in someones basement. These are well financed and have skilled people doing the work. So they'll always be there. I see that the government checks for Gucci bags from China, maybe they should stop allowing coins from China coming into the US.

 

I agree %100. The ludicrous thing is that its way easier to detect a fake Gucci or Coach bag than a counterfeit silver dollar - WHICH IS STILL LEGAL TENDER in the U.S and thus far more serious of an intrusion!

Designer bags are a great analogy —the stitching, the spacing between the seams, the quality of the leather, the elasticity, the feel of the zipper, the S/N, etc…- the more salient the discrepancies are to the average consumer, the harder it should be, in theory, to fake. But that’s not the case…anymore.

In my limited and humble opinion, it’s both a combination of consumer ignorance and advances in the counterfeiting market.

The Chinese are STRIKING these coins now, with high quality replica die. They are NOT casting them. This makes detection, even by TPG services, extremely difficult, assuming the same composition (%90 silver, %10 copper alloy) is used. Once the hurdle of perfecting the die is overcome, there’s little that can be done.

I mean, it’s not like one can carbon date them! (atleast, I’d think not…).

 

You can carbon date organic "gunk" if it's there on the surface. But, this is only semi-reliable and far too expensive a process for 98% of the fakes they make.

XRF can be helpful for older coins for which the metal was mined with certain processes not used today and thus would be expected to have impurities of other metals in predictable concentrations on the surface. Again, can be fooled if the coin being faked is valuable enough to warrant it.