Deceiving Struck Counterfeit 1806 “C-1” Half Cents

Since I wrote my Coin Week article on counterfeit 1806 half cents there has been additional activity. One of my friends in our Dark Side Group messaged me he owned the probable “source” example, and another messaged me he like me owns 3 different examples of the linked struck fakes. Two of his are raw and one certified, while 2 of mine are certified and one is raw; we hopefully can arrange a meeting in the future to compare notes and examples! For any EAC members here I will have my collection on display at EAC ’18 Michigan in May.


The 1st image in this post is of my raw example; I have been told by others it is actually the most “original” appearing of my 3 examples.

The next image is of one of the originally “discovered” examples back in the fall of 2015, and the third an example noted as originating in China.




The article can be seen at https://coinweek.com/counterfeits/s...-1806-c-1-half-cent-1-page-attribution-guide/

Best, Jack.

 

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Thanks for the info. It is kind of scary to see counterfeit coins like this and makes me in I'm sure of ever buying an early half cent.

 

A very informative post and good to get the word out.

 

Over the Holiday weekend I was able to purchase the source coin for these; still had the original Stack's Bowers lot tag from 2013 on the holder.

 

What are the unique characteristics present in the source coin that allow you to attribute the counterfeits struck by dies modeled from this source?

 

But to be the source coin:

1. Was it broken out and reslabbed in order to create the dies?

2. Does this mean Stacks could identify the buyer? Thereby identifying the counterfeiter?

 

But the buyer could have bought the coin raw from someone he didn't know was making fakes, and then had the coin slabbed.
I don't think there's any way to tell and Stacks is not going to get into that gray area. That coin could have changed hands several times after the fakes were made.

 

Well, this coin could have originally been raw, used to make the dies and then slabbed for the auction; in the Stack's 2013 auction it went unsold. A friend of mine bought it off the internet and we know the seller, but it is all speculative who's hands it passed through prior.

I have sent info to any auction houses associated with any of these we have found but confidentiality concerns prevents them from releasing consignor info.

 

I don't think this should scare anyone away from half cents. First of all, any dealer in EAC will stand behind what he sells if it proves to be fake. Second, if a TPG has slabbed a fake, they are on the hook for the value.

 

Absolutely agree! Folks may want to rethink breaking coins from slabs right away though...

 

Justafarmer, we identified this example as the probable source back in 2015 primarily due to the “crispness” of the strike/ attribution sister marks relative to images of other examples we have seen.

The damage at the “A” of HALF appears different to the presumed counterfeits in that it appears more as a line or deep nick, where the others look more “plugged”, an assumed result of the die making process. Also the depth of the scratch over the “L” appears more significant than on the others.



It is admittedly speculation at this time…

 

Jack here are a few things I see - feel free to correct anything that is wrong. Based on the images as presented - I cannot not make a determination on counterfeit 2.

 

justafarmer, great image analysis as always! I own "Counterfeit #2" and will work to get beter images; these were from the TPG's web site. I can say the "gouge" over "L" is definitely on this example- I just need to put it in-hand again to review the other marks you noted in your images. I have loaned a couple from my collection to a friend teaching two classes at this month's summer ANA including this one.

Another Marker on the reverse is the "line" on the lower portion of the "E" in CENT.