Another bad coin in a good holder; latest eBay 1806 half cent.

I have actually written 4 published articles on this group of deceptive fakes going back to the 1st we saw back in 2015. The following image is from my 2nd (updated) EAC Penny-Wise article when I found there were actually 2 die states for the counterfeit/ false dies.

In this article I noted 14 different documented example with 6 being in genuine TPG holders.

And now there are 16 thanks to eBay this month...

The 1st is raw and purchased from a seller who collects Chinese coins. I explained it is counterfeit after he accepted my offer. He later told me he got it from a "cleaning lady" who cleaned out the basement of a coin shop in Boston that had gone out of business. I circled 4 main reverse atts for these in the image:



This made 6 in my collection alone.

But wait, there's more!

A week later this one shows up:



Yes, seller ended after our discussion. We negotiated a price and it should be in-hand tomorrow. It is the nicest of any in my collection but counterfeit all the same. And the 2nd die state where they tried to repair the cut in the die over "A".




The TPG was notified and the on-line cert amended; the original owner Dealer from whatnot was also informed. And I have written now my 5th article on these.

These just seem to be the gift that keeps on giving...



Best, Jack.

 

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Nice write up. My question is how do these keep getting past NGC, since you notified them or are these also sometimes fake holders? I figure a combination of both.

 

Great question @mark_h ! All I have shown are genuine holders attributed as genuine. They originally got through because they are that good until you put them together as we have done. This latest one is a mystery, as my contact at the TPG stated it is recent. And the Dealer is well known...

 

I was busy checking out the reverse on the 1806 I just bought a few weeks back, from another well known dealer just to make sure. Glad we have people like you around.

 

In your estimation, Jack, would these be contemporary counterfeits or more modern day shenanigans?

 

These are recent; can trace the source example back to around 2008. I first became alerted to the counterfeit ring operating out of College Station Texas back in 2015.

 

Jack, your latest acquisition in AU-58 is the most troubling. They really got the artificial toning down on that one. If you had collected half cents from this era for a while, many of the others had a tone which was not consistent with the natural or even the artificial look you often see.

I have never seen a contemporary counterfeit of a half cent. Even then, the coin had such limited buying power that it wasn’t worth the counterfeiter’s time. If one were to fake something, it would be far more productive to make a dime or higher.

 

My Proxiblog summary article:

https://proxiblog.org/2025/06/21/18...jzCWgbDDMEitO8Lj8g_aem_VC3i4Jcygo30zg5PKiFaOA

 

Makes me glad the one I got today is an 1805. Quick, crappy pics

 

Your coin looks good, but don’t assume it’s real because of the date. The crooks can create other dates as well. One of the early Chinese creations was a complete set of counterfeit Seated Dollars housed in a counterfeit Dansco album. If you knew what the dates looked like on the real thing, you would have spotted the counterfeits immediately, but they all had different dates and mint marks.

BTW, the 1805 half cent is scarcer than the 1806 and 1804, which is the most common date in the entire half cent series. Your piece is an 1805 C-1, with the stemless wreath, which is most common of the four 1805 varieties. Believe it or not that stemless wreath die was used for the most common varieties of 1804, 1805 and 1806 half cents. It was one tough customer!

 

Not for the faint of heart, my 1805 half cent...

 

@Jack D. Young I noticed that you got consulted on this one recently. Good work!
https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/dubious-double-denomination-examined-by-coppers-experts

 

Interesting "Skynet" knows...