GTG: "1861" Three Cent Silver

Flynn & Zack recount the story of a counterfeiting ring broken up in New York City in 1885. They were counterfeiting 1c 3c and 'dimes' out of copper and German silver.

 

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That's what threw me off..... the German coin silver 0.800 used to make these counterfeits . Not made in Germany duh.... multi tasking reading work e mails and the forum at the same time.

 

Yes it's a good source on these little gems

 

What makes them so valuable?

 

I don't know that they are all that valuable. There's just not a lot of information or collectors out there.

Flynn & Zack's book only listed a handful they were aware of, supposedly there are people working on books, but nothing has been published. ATS I posted a picture of another 1861 (with a shattered die) and was told it's well known, I received a PM that one individual has five of them in his/her collection in different die states.

Contemporary Counterfeits (of any coin) don't trade as widely or as openly as mint products.

Gerry Fortin lists one trime for sale among his contemporary counterfeits:
http://www.seateddimevarieties.com/FS_Lists/bogo.htm

The Liberty Seated club tracks them within their series: http://www.lsccweb.org/Contemporary_Counterfeits.htm

The Black Cabinet tracks modern counterfeits, especially fake slabs: http://www.theblackcabinet.org/counterfeit/ (I'm not sure this is still active, last reports are March 2015).


How rare? Hard to tell...

At least with the mint product, you have mintage, know a lot were melted in the 1870s (and up through the 1930s) and have estimated survival rates. For example, http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Coin/Detail/3679

Mintage: 497,000
Estimated survival (all grades): 7,500 (1.5%)
Estimated survival (mint state): 1,000

Counterfeits weren't melted by the treasury, but they certainly suffered the same other kinds of problems: lost, damaged, seized & destroyed. With much smaller mintages. If you made a few thousand and only a few percent remain, that makes them fall somewhere nice on the rarity scale:

• R-8: This is a unique coin; only 1 exists

• R-7 High: A coin that’s excessively rare; 2 to 3 exist

• R-7 Low: An extremely rare coin with 4 to 12 remaining known

• R-6: A very rare coin with 13 to 30 known specimens

• R-5: 31 to 75 coins exist, classifying it as rare

• R-4: A very scarce coin with 76 to 200 examples left

 

What a find.

I know several collectors that would be falling all over each other to get to this one. Nice find!

 

Well Burton covered just about everything on these. Try finding one for a type set that doesn't have any issues . In an Xf- Au grade,without paying a tidy sum.

 

I think the most obvious for me are the weird shapes of the stars, and the clearly strange arrows. Everything has a generally "bloated" appearance, but those are the most off.

 

After soaking in Acetone for about 3 days (I forgot about it)


no real change