commemorative fake

I am so glad that I posted this thread now. I am beginning to believe the Stone Mountain coin was dipped making it too clean and having less detail. When I looked at it again, I can see a tiny bit of the original surface in one area. The Sesquicentennial may have been dipped at one time but has toned some since. Columbus looks completely original.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Here are a 1926 Sesquicentennial Half and a 1925 Stone Mountain half for comparison:

 

After looking at medals and coins from the centennial, the Stone's Mountain commemorative looks less precisely struck. That combined with the lack of tarnish is what fooled me. All three coins came in an airtight container so they looked too clean. At least this time, I made a mistake in reverse. I got all three for about 140 dollars so it was a good move and not a big mistake. Thanks to you all for your input and help for steering me into the right path.

 

I agree. What your considering a point of counterfeiting, is nothing more than wear.

 

Other than Stone Wall Jacksons buttons looking polished, I don't see anything appearing untoward....

 

Just a little advice for you , since you are new to coin collecting, it is extremely difficult to compare a coin in hand to a coin from an online photo. My suggestion would be to take your items to an experienced dealer in your area and have them authenticated if you believe them to be counterfeits. Don't be afraid to ask questions of the dealer as to what to look for on genuine coins and what to look for if you suspect a fake or unmarked copy. The only way you learn is by asking, which you have done here on CT and have received a lot of good advice from some experienced numismatists.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the advice. I know what you mean about photographs. A small change in angle will completely change the overall look of an object. (learned from aerial photography) Can you recommend a book that would help me out with detecting forgeries?

 

Hope you did not pay too much for them they appear to be circulated harshly cleaned examples. Not worth much more than melt value IMO.

 

I too bought a counterfeit Stone mountain half from Ebay. A Very good and convincing counterfeit. Good detail, Nice Unc. cart wheel effect, even rings like silver when spun on a table but the pitch was slightly off when I compared it to genuine silver halves. The give away was when I weighted it, 11g instead of the 12.5g that it should have been. I will keep it in my collection as a counterfeit. But I must wonder Why would someone go to such great effort to create such a convincing counterfeit when a genuine coin would only be worth around $50. I also wonder just how many of these are out there?

 

The best way to avoid counterfeits that I know is not to buy raw coins on eBay. There apparently is no limit to what these fakers will fake.

 

The image posted of the OP coins make me think they are real.

 

Well if you can produce the convincing counterfeit for about $5 you're making a 900% profit. And being only a fifty dollar coin it isn't going to be examined as closely as a $500 coin. You can sell a lot more of them. Third point is that there is a much broader market for $50 coins than there is for $500 coins.

 

Necro-thread alert!

 

I just found this thread and the ANA had an article on the counterfeit Stone Mountain coins. I want to see more of them to understand if they came from a single die. Does anyone have one?

 

Red alert, this thread has just been resurrected again :-D

 

The counterfeit design has evolved over the last few years. For instance, Aliexpress used to have tons of them, I'm sure they still do. They used to be really obvious fakes, but had improved since.

I did note in another thread, that the fakes on that website (good thing) seemed to have been purged. Just checking, the Stone Mountains $1.40ish now listed have a "COPY" stamp on them. But as mentioned in another thread, you can get them from elsewhere too.

I used to use that website to research fakes and fake errors. Many commems were faked.

 

3 years necro'd on an 8 year old thread. LOL

 

Well I just finished an email conversation with NGC on them and for some reason the images they sent me remind me of a certified coin die. I am wondering if the fakes were made from an existing coin that already had a number of issues.

in the article they stated that the coins were slightly underweight but were made from 93% silver. I know crooks are not always bright, but that is a higher silver content than the genuine coins which gives me some pondering time.

The coins would have to be sold on something like eBay or at coin shows to unsuspecting collectors. I don't think any TPG would let them pass at a high enough grade to overcome the grading cost.

If you are an ANA member you can see the article in the April issue of The Numismatist on their web site. They are referencing a new use of an older die pair, but something just doesn't ring true in the whole thing for me. There aren't enough commemorative collectors to move them in bulk and the quality is too poor to get them graded high.

Any thoughts? Or is this a case of "Stupid is as Stupid does." like Mama Gump said?

 

eBay, facebook, craigslist, YouTube auctions, gun shows, etc
There's another thread here where a texas vendor (detailed thread link below) was sending coins to china for them to counterfeit, albeit with slight improvements.

I recall seeing a lot of Stone Mountains being sold on various Facebook groups. Not a lot as in hundreds, just a somewhat steady stream of them for a while .. plus of course everything else. I don't know if a counterfeiter would make xxx coins for inventory, then make another xx of something else and sell out of inventory or just on an as order basis, etc. I guess it depends on how many presses they have?

Goes back to those videos of chinese counterfeiters making Morgan dollars. They get better and better over time.

Plus the 1800 era Half & Large Cents etc stunningly accurate counterfeits. Here they identify the die variety used ==> https://www.cointalk.com/threads/1797-s-139-large-cent-suspect-examples-and-initial-research.319271/

 

Well the high silver content throws me. The Morgan counterfeits that I bought to study were all made from some base metal.