Dangerously Deceptive

@Insider will appreciate this thread.

It seems a bit slow on CT, most likely from the holidays of course and folks having to go back to work. With Christmas now over and fresh ebay gift cards and holiday money burning holes in collectors pockets, now shall be the perfect time to show off one of my newest acquisitions. Occasionally, we get the novice and even an expert asking for values and grades of their rare raw coins. Sometimes those coins arent coins at all, but rather your ever more common Chinese fake.

Here I want to reiterate the dangers of buying rare coins raw. Now, I myself am guilty of buying such coins ungraded off ebay, as have many others. Personally I do a great deal of research before spending a large amount on a raw coin, and if in anyway I do not feel comfortable, I do not make the purchase.

Over the last few years I have been studying contemporary counterfeits as well as fakes designed to decieve for numismatic purposes. I have become well accustomed to spotting fakes and counterfeits, so much so, that I can spot them from crappy ebay seller pictures. Which brings me to the subject of this thread.


When I saw this 1803 Draped Bust Dollar, it made me stop. I do not collect this series cause usually I cant afford them. But it was its cheap price and its convincing obverse that made me take a closer look at the seller pictures. The obverse looked like a typical worn draped bust that I have seen hundreds of pictures of before. But it was because of those hundreds of pictures that I have viewed, that I knew something was wrong with this. And with quick google search, it wasnt long before I became somewhat of an expert on the draped bust dollar series. On this obverse the first thing we must look at is the date. It's orientation is pretty close to that of an authentic example where the 8 is slightly higher than the 1 and 0, however the 1 does look a bit long. But it is the 3 that gives it away. It's too rounded at its serifs and not sharp like an authentic 3. Let's take a look at the reverse:



Now here we have some more obvious signs. From the seller's pics you couldn't see what my eyes are immediatly drawn to when looking at the reverse. Starting from STATES and working your way down you start to see signs of casting on the surfaces.

So imagine, seeing this coin in pictures a little worse than mine. All you see is the obverse and reverse. Could be pretty convincing to someone not so familiar with draped bust dollars. I also want to point out that I did find a website that discusses the more commonly seen Chinese draped bust dollars and one like this was not shown. One of the more common draped bust fakes are the ones with the AMERICAI reverses, where an extra line is present after AMERICA. Note this piece is not one of those.

Im gonna show two more pictures I took of the obv and rev.



Here we see what else troubles me with this fake. The toning. It isnt very often you see a this quality of a Chinese fake, right down to suttle hints of toning. This piece isnt only the correct 40mm diameter (5 grams too light), but appears to have some silver content as well.

It wouldn't be until you purchased this piece and had it in hand until you saw the most obvious signs of deception. The edge. Some may not realize it but, draped bust halfs and dollars both had edge lettering that basically said the denomination of the coin. Here is my best attempt at capturing what I finally was able to see when I recieved it:


What a mess. It is hard to see but there are missing letters and repunched letters all around. Note that CENTS is spelled with an extra E. ONE is spelled OOEE. DOLLAR is just a jumble of letters. UNIT seems to be the only word actually spelled correct.

Also, if you are curious, the seller was not selling this coin as a real example. And they werent selling it as a fake either. They had it listed as a commemorative. It was cheap. And in the wrong hands it could have been easily sold as the real deal. From the research I have done, this is by far, one of the best fakes I have personally seen of the draped bust design, and seems that the casts would have been made from a real example, kind of like how some of the contemporary counterfeits were made.

Now I dont know much more about this piece, or even if it is from China. I have heard Spain has produced some very decieving examples, but have never seen any. Now this one has its signs that are obvious when looked closley but, it wouldnt take much to make this piece better and that is scary.

Regardless, always be leary what you are buying online. I know it has been said many, many times on here, but always do your research before buying. Who knows how many of this quality or better exist and how many are sitting in unsuspecting collections.

 

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I forgot to mention, I do now own this coin. I purchased it a couple weeks ago off ebay and is now in my possession. I paid under 30 bucks for it and it wasn't a foreign seller. The seller actually lives in my state.

I do not intend to defraud anyone with it, and actually thought maybe it was a contmeporary counterfeit at first. But I believe it has silver content and after looking at it closer I do not believe it is a contemporary counterfeit, but a rather deceptive modern fake.

 

I enjoyed the read; thank you for taking the time to post this thread.

 

Enjoyed reading this, and I hope it helps educate some newer collectors who might not be aware of the dangerously deceptive counterfeits being openly produced in China. I've read about one of the more productive counterfeiters who actually uses silver planchets to make his 'product' even more difficult to detect. The laws in China, such as they are, don't apply to collectible US coins, and undoubtedly serve their government's purposes. When I used to participate on ebay, one of the Chinese sellers would even offer to not stamp the 'coins' with the 'copy' mark as required by US law.

 

Thank you for posting this. These kinds of items are a blight on the hobby and the only way to combat them is knowledge of the kind you are trying to teach here. Much appreciate the effort Evan.

 

Thank you, this was very educating.

 

This is a pretty darn good fake, with one immediate and glaring flaw on each face which would not stand up to the first level of due diligence on the part of a buyer, a level of diligence even the most experienced of collectors should engage in every_single_time: attribution.

There is but one 1803 variety with serifs on the 3: B-6/BB-255. On the obverse of this coin, look at the star spacing around LIBERTY. On the real coin, the stars are evenly spaced either side. On this coin, the stars are closer to the Y than the L.

Sorry, fake.

On the reverse, note the star touching the bottom of the eagle's beak. On the real coin, it touches the top of the beak.

Sorry, fake.

And there's no reason for anyone to ever fail on an Early Dollar attribution any more, not with an ironclad attribution wizard online and free to use:

http://www.earlydollars.org/wizardhome.htm

Evan8, everything you wrote is perfectly accurate (and very scary). It's indicative that the counterfeiters are raising their game. Somewhat. Proof that the only way to combat them is education. If every honest potential buyer knew what I've just posted, the attribution wizard and how to attribute, this coin would never have deceived anyone, even without the casting evidence on the surfaces. The points I offered would be definitive in far worse images.

 

Great analysis of an often counterfeited coin. Thanks for sharing.

 

I just went through the wizard and all I'll say is cool.

 

And...enlarge any side of the OP coin. When you see this GRANULAR surface, 99% of the time it is a modern Chinese counterfeit.

 

Great OP write up!

Also great additions from other members including the wizard link. Knowledge IS power

 

It changed everything for me regarding Early Dollars. I'm already an experienced attributor with other issues (Morgans, Bust Halves) which doesn't mean I have all that stuff in my head, just that I have the process down pat. Once you have that, you make very few mistakes as long as enough information is available.

As far as I'm concerned, attribution is as important as grading in the numismatists' arsenal. We cannot plan on the counterfeiters not catching up in this regard, although I'm thinking a level of sophistication high enough to fool experienced attributors is also enough to put the offender on law enforcement radar. And in China, if you offend them badly enough (and bring enough shame onto the government/country) they execute you....

 

Thanks for that. I knew about the wizard but forgot about it until you mentioned it. Like I said I dont collect this early of dollar.

There may not be any reason for someone to get fooled by this one, but you and I both know, people still would. Seems there will always be someone too lazy to read no matter how easy the information is to access.

 

I agree that attribution is very important. That's how I figured out my one and only seated dollar wasnt fake. However there are instances where contemporary counterfeiters made some examples using direct transfer methods where you can actually attribute the piece to the coin the dies were made from based on the host coin's attribution. But you can tell they are counterfeit because the base metal was something other than silver.

 

This is an amazingly convincing fake in your second set of pictures, until you look closer at the diagnostics like @SuperDave, or at the edge like you did. I'd love to be able to study this piece up close sometime, but I wouldn't even have the time to do it for several months.

My first thought on seeing only the obverse was that it looked real enough to investigate further. I certainly wouldn't be spending the several thousand dollars to buy a piece in this grade without either attributing it myself or having it verified by PCGS/NGC/ANACS.

Second thought, upon seeing the reverse was: reverse surfaces sure do look funny. I bet it's cast.

Is there any trace of a casting seam or sprue? I'm guessing there is not because the edge lettering was applied afterward, obliterating such evidence of casting.

I think you should take it someplace and have them do XRF on it to determine its elemental composition. How does it ring?

 

Completely agreed, which is why I never stop pushing the need to educate and be educated.

 

I think it is fascinating. Like I said maybe the cast was made from an authentic example? But then some tooling went into it. Then there is the artificial wear covering up who knows what. Then the toning. Really interesting IMO, and scary.

No casting seam I can see. There are some lines around the edge that are odd. They were there before the edge lettering was applied and travel the circumfrence of the piece. I will add pictures later tonight of that.

The ring sound is odd. The piece is a bit thin and being 5 grams too light, of course will change the sound. I havent compared it to that of an authentic silver dollar yet. I will do that tonight as well.

I will look into the XRF. I know it has to have some silver content.

 

Random thought: could this be a contemporary piece? It would account for the toning, and might mean some or all the wear is from circulation. The wear pattern is right, and the fact the edge lettering is so bad can be explained by the fact that nobody would look at it if it's being passed in commerce.

Are there any references on contemporary counterfeit Bust dollars?

 

I still havent ruled that out completely. It isnt very crude. CC's were meant to blend in and not to be looked at real hard. Modern fakes have to be better, although there are some pretty bad modern fakes out there.

The big problem is that there arent really any resources i know of that talk much about early contemporary counterfeits.

I would love to know when this piece was made. That would say a lot.

 

Here are a couple of pictures showing some lines, some raised, going around the edge