http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...ndexURL=0&photoDisplayType=2#ebayphotohosting I just got my US Gold counterfeit detection guide by Bill Fivaz today. I was reading it tonight and decided to go on ebay to analyze some of the gold there. Not going to constantly do this but I found it interesting that the first loose gold piece I looked at, I believe is a counterfeit, compared to others I looked at and from what I've learned in this book. The guy admits it must have been a jewelery piece. So he doesn't know where it came from. Look at the pitted, bubbly sufarce, especially on reverse. The A at the end of America on reverse looks too large. In addition to possible depressions and possible tool marks on back of the neck. You can enlarge the pictures quite a bit. This one really stood out to me compared to anything else. What do you guys think? It said in the book that the 2.5 and 5 dollar indian pieces are one of the most commonly counterfeited.
This coin appears to be a 1909-D instead of a 1909 as stated in the auction. I don't see any of the markers noted in Fivaz's book for the '09 or '09-D. I see nothing to indicate that this coin is anything other than genuine. The depressions you see on the coin appear to be contact marks. There are tons of marks on this coin which would be expected for a former jewelry piece. The depressions noted by Fivaz (or any other counterfeit detection guide) are "repeating depressions" that are found on every counterfeit coin produced by particular counterfeit dies. Contact marks that existed on the host coin were picked up when the counterfeit dies were made and these marks were reproduced on every coin made by those dies. Repeating depressions typically will have rounded edges and will be the same color and luster as the surrounding fields. An actual contact mark is a scratch or gouge into the metal and will have sharp edges and will be shiny and will stand out from the surrounding areas. No offense but when looking for counterfeit coins "a little knowledge can be dangerous". A counterfeit detection guide like Fivaz's is great but I recommend you educate yourself on counterfeit detection a bit further. When you learn how different counterfeit dies are made and how counterfeit coins are struck (or cast) you will better understand what the markers mean and don't mean. I took Detecting Counterfeit & Altered Coins at an ANA Summer Seminar and learned a great deal. One thing the instructors told us was that after that course almost every coin would look like a counterfeit to us until we looked at enough coins to gain the experience needed to go along with our newly-acquired knowledge. To an extent I think that is true. JP Martin (one of the instructors in my Counterfeit Detection course and a senior grader at ANACS) has an excellent DVD entitled Detecting Counterfeit and Altered US Coins. While this is no substitute for the 4 1/2 day course it is a great primer and I would highly recommend it for anyone who would like to learn some basic counterfeit detection skills. (It is available for $42.95 from ANA. I also see it occasionally on eBay.)
I don't really understand the theory of repeating die marks. I realize the book picked out a particular counterfeit for each date and you look for those particular markings. But it doesn't account for any other counterfeits made by anybody else.
It's not really a theory. It is fact. Let's say that a counterfeiter wants to make counterfeit 1909-D $5 coins. He might buy a very nice genuine MS-63 example of this coin and use it as his "host" coin. The host coin is not perfect and has several bag marks. The next thing the counterfeiter may do is buy several common date, low grade Double Eagles and melt them. Each Double Eagle will give him enough gold for 4 $5 gold coins - in the exact alloy used by the Mint. Next he will need dies to strike his counterfeit coins. There are various ways of doing this but the counterfeiter will make "transfer dies" that are exact mirror images of the host coin's obverse and reverse. Every defect on the host coin (e.g., bag marks, which are scratched - depressed - into the coin's surface) will be copied on the transfer dies. So every coin made from these dies will have the identical depressions where the bag marks and scratches were located on the host coin. If the host coin had a scratch in the field it will appear on the transfer die as a raised area above the field. When the counterfeiter stikes a coin with his transfer dies that raised area creates a depression below the field on the struck coin identical to the scratch on the host coin EXCEPT that on the counterfeit coin the depression will have smooth edges and have luster (because it was struck) whereas the scratch on the host coin will have sharp edges and no luster (because it is a scratch). Bag marks and scratches are random and theoretically no two coins should have the same bag marks and scratches. So when you find a struck counterfeit coin with depressions made by the dies you know that the depressions will be repeated on other coins struck by the same dies. That is why they are called "repeating depressions". These repeating depressions are used as markers to identify counterfeit coins. That does not mean that every counterfeit 1909-D $5 will have the same repeating depressions found on the above counterfeiter's coins. If he or another counterfeiter made another set of dies from another host coin coins made from those dies would have an entirely different set of repeating depressions. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the reply. My original concern was with this statement: "Bag marks and scratches are random and theoretically no two coins should have the same bag marks and scratches. So when you find a struck counterfeit coin with depressions made by the dies you know that the depressions will be repeated on other coins struck by the same dies. That is why they are called "repeating depressions". " But if nobody's showed you that a particular coin is a counterfeit, repeating depressions is a moot point. I know what it means but it only helps you after you identify one. There could be a hundred different types of counterfeits for the 1909-D. You can't just go by the pictures in this book except for a reference to look for, as you said, the depressions with rounded edges that have luster. Can you spot them well just by looking at blown up pictures on ebay? It seems to me it would be a tough thing to spot unless you had the coin in person.
That is correct. But then that's one of the reasons that TPG's exist - because they can tell. That is also why there are classes and books - so you can try to learn how to do it yourself. But as a general rule, very few collectors can do this. Which brings back to the TPG's. Yes there could be several different counterfeits. But as a general rule there is usually one type that is any good. That's because not all counterfeiters goes to all the trouble of making quality dies and mass produce the coins thus producing a large number of the exact same type of counterfeit. Most other counterfeits are nothing but crude copies made with methods that do not require lots of experience to detect them. And these fakes are not made in large numbers. There may be anywhere from only 1 example to a handful. So you seldom run across them. It is the others that were mass produced that you have to worry about. And it is these coins that are talked about in the books and classes. That depends entirely on the quality of the pics. If the pics are good enough, yes you can spot them. If the pics are not - then no you can't. But before you can spot them you have the knowledge to be able to do so. Few do.
I had the pleasure of taking the 1 day counterfeit coin and alteration detection class at the phoenix ANA show. Although it was only one 8 hour day, I learned alot and got to see alot of counterfeit gold coins. I hope to someday take the official course at the ANA. I have always strived to become an expert on counterfeit gold coins, (not alterations), the main thing is I Need to see more of them, both geniune (so I know what a geniune coin looks like, anything else will look suspicious), and counterfeit, so I'm able to spot most counterfeits that just do not 'look' right. Brian Silliman was the teacher, he taught secret service agents how to detect counterfeit coins as well as he was a past grader at NGC and conservative at NCS. Since then I've been reading as much as I can on counterfeits, I have several books including "numismatic forgery" which goes through the process of actually making the counterfeits, to understand it better. I have a few counterfeit gold articles, (one by brian sillman on depressions) taped to my wall as well! The ANA Course helped alot, as well as the ANA magazine The Numismatist, as well as reading articles from Mike on Numismatic News, and the COINage magazine occasionlly.
The 5-day Counterfeit Detection course at ANA Summer Seminar is great and I highly recommend it. It is taught by Bob Campbell (ANA past-President and SLC coin dealer) and JP Martin (ANACS grader and authenticator). I took the course several years ago and learned a LOT. I liked that course so much that I continue to educate myself on counterfeits whenever possible. A partner and I will be teaching a mini-seminar at this year's ANA Summer Seminar entitled A Practical Guide to Detecting Counterfeit Coins. Our course is intended to be an introduction to counterfeit detection and will be 6 hours over two evenings. I hope we can teach half as much as Brian Silliman covers in 8 hours.
Yep, I plan to go to it someday...I live in the far west (arizona) quite a ways, unfortunately. That's awesome you're going to do a seminiar, I would like to say I'm pretty knowledgeable about counterfeits but I need to understand the minting process more. Another poster here, said he recently got the Bill fivaz book, (I have it too), and searched on ebay for obvious fake gold coins. Well, funny thing is I did the same thing, thinking I could do it. The problem was when I ran across a jewerly damaged 1 dollar gold coin, which was probably geniune, but I wasn't familiar with the GENIUNE details of that coin. The main thing was with the letters on all geniune specimens look like they are 'stamped' in. I saw this and assumed it was fake...the truth is it seems you really have to understand what a geniune coin looks like to spot the fakes. It takes alot of experience at looking at coins often to spot good fakes, it just "doesn't look right". I'm not at that level yet but hope to be some day. It's funny you said in the thread too at first every coin looks counterfeit, that's true! Until you can become intimately familiar with a geniune specimen, this seems so true. I should also add Brian Silliman did the same thing, and he spotted one he said within 5 minutes, which was obvious fake ($3), because of the "halo" effect it had.
