1895 O Forgery

So a pawn shop that changed hands, near my house.
Has a family running it. The kids that mostly do the buys, pulled in some coins that a guy was pawning, I have been picking his brain about them for about 2 months.

Yesterday, I was able to get some answers from him on their condition, and status. The Kid said he was gonna get some of them graded. He pulled out a small zip lock from the safe and starts telling me of a guy. Who is being chased and eventually prosecuted, with some real good fakes, and in his assortment of coins had some in fake slabs, etc.
This, Guy supposedly has pawned over $60G's in coins across, the Denver metro area.
To his pocket I might add.

Anyways, he said that the police didn't confiscate the coin below, for some reason or another, This was with some unsuspecting 50 cent pieces an Indian cent and a token from Montana commerce.

 

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I'd like to say these are cell phone pics. I might give him 30$ unless ya'll say different. It is a silver piece. I will stop by and get the weight and diameter tomorrow.
I looked at this coin for about 20 min. The surface doesn't look right, it looks pitted, the die fading on states and to the left with a well struck wing gave me trouble. I will see if he is willing to let me get this under my lens tomorrow,
any one suggest a good market price?

 

The image is pretty low-res so it's hard to identify distinguishing features, but in my experience the easiest way to detect high quality counterfeits (those composed of 90% silver w/same weight+specs as authentic) is to examine:
1) The fields, under a loupe, for signs of any small casting bubbles.
2) The typeface of the date in particular. See below for a high-res image of an authentic 1895-O date.
3) The denticles

 

There was a guy a few years ago who went up the southern east coast area doing the same thing. He sold a bunch of fake slabbed coins to the pawn shops and made off with thousands. There were several warrants issued for him locally but I don't know if he was ever taken into custody. He was a professional scam artist so I'm sure he fled the area almost immediately. I doubt they would extradite him outside of the surrounding states area. The fakes were good enough to fool a lot of shops.

 

I am not a Morgan Dollar/VAM guy. Not familiar with variations but i lean towards OP's coin is fake.

 

For the most part I wasn't thrown off at first glance but, as you said, I put a loupe on it and the fake was very evident.

I am thinking about buying it as a hole filler.

 

is this the same place that threw the 1889 CC across the room? (I think that was you who started that thread?)

 

That coin is not a "really good fake." It looks pretty amateurish to me. Once again, for the umptheenth time, who but the most gullible collector would buy a date such as that raw, and not from an extremely reliable dealer?

 

If the pawn shop kids intend to do coins, they owe it to the family to learn something about them before giving away free money.

 

No, but I talked to two more pawn shops today, that got taken, They were taken on gold pieces.\
I imagine the guy with the CC, was taken in the same scam.
The two guys today said they were taken for about 5 g's combined.

 

I understand you completely but if their is money to be made, Pawn shops are the bottom feeders, they take from the poor and try to scam them to the rich,
this fake was bought for 20 to 30$. And would have expected to get at least 12 to 1500 for it. They could care less if it is real or not, the way the laws are written, and their clause upon receipt, releases them from liability. I say let them get taken. Eye for an Eye.

 

I try to teach and pass on any knowledge that I have, some listen but some don't.

 

I'm sure someone here will take great offense to the above, but I wholeheartedly agree. It's one thing for a collector or the like to be taken, but it's hard to have any real sympathy when a business, or anyone presenting themselves as a business/dealer, has been. While there are the exceptions, when one puts on the hat of being a professional, the onus is on them to actually know what they're doing.

 

The few pawn shops I've been in seem to be staffed by arrogant know-it-alls. It tickles me pea green to see a bunch of them get taken.

 

@BooksB4Coins
I say that in a little bit of haste, I have seen coins sit in cases for months if not almost a year. Because, they are to ignorant to make a buck, they want to make a killing. They say, if you don't buy them some other "sucker" will.
Our hobby is being influenced by these "dealers" that have zero business putting that hat on. They for the most part discust me.
Unless I am able to pick them of course. I have paid full price many of times.

 

Understood completely, there is one guy that manages a fast cash by my house, we have become pretty good acquaintances. I used to find coins that were either over priced or IMO not real. At this time he had just gotten control of this place.
Anyways, not to toot my own horn, but one day we started to see eye to eye.
I told him "what are you trying to do just rip people off?
How about you get a couple of books and try to learn about what you are selling, instead of by those images and the bidiots on ebay.
His shop always has an influx of coins coming in, but before that day they just sat in the case, over priced.
Well, he took it to heart and now, cant keep them on the shelf because he sells them for what they are worth. His whole business motto has changed, I hardly ever see the same things, and go to him for tools etc.
We can have an influence on some of them, just takes some persistence sometimes.
There are those who are willing to learn.

 

That eagle looks like a skinny chicken.

 

It's hit or miss with the pawn shops. Some of them are def crooked as can be but others are just honest business people looking to buy and sell. I haven't found any pawn shops in my area that don't want a fortune for their coins. Some of them are just looking to make a killing but I think others just don't have a good grasp of the actual value of what they have. I have found a buy gold and silver place that is fantastic. Great people and very fair with their prices.

 

Pawn Shops are high risk money lenders first - retailers 2nd. If the shop loans fair value adjusted for expected interest - redemption would cost the debtor approximately fair value of the property therefore significantly decreasing the incentive of paying off the loan. Forfeiture of the property must carry a significantly greater financial loss for the debtor vs paying the loan.

 

There are several date positions on genuine dollars. Any "truly deceptive" counterfeit will pass your overlay test.

based on the way the date is "pushed" to the side, it may be a genuine coin that is whizzed.