Is This 1904-S Barber Half in high grade authentic?

At least if you aren't confident in your ability to authenticate.

 

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Exactamundo.....which I am not.
If such coins I were to buy, I'd only trust the experts. Novice affiliation is most poor, in my estimation. In other words, I don't trust my ability to purchase such pieces without proper determination.

 

The slabs are being faked as well, and some are really good. That’s why I said don’t buy any coins until the fakes become obvious. Because it is slabbed does not mean it is genuine.

This one just showed up. The left coin is fake, the right one is from Heritage. This is scary because they are getting the “coin” grades close to the label grades.

 

TypeCoin, where are you getting the left photo of the counterfeit Morgan Dollar from? I work primarily with world coins and have seen fake slabs/slabbed coins, but that is one of the best fakes I have ever seen, if that is the case.

 

I’m active with the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force group and this was reported with several coins from the eBay seller, and the coins being sold did not match the coins in known genuine holders. They were originally reported on Collectors Universe. But I am in agreement that these are scary good.

 

Wow, yep, "scary" is definitely the right word!

 

The fonts are one obvious tell. Both serif fonts, but otherwise quite different.

 

Actually I probably overstated that. Not "quite different", but different enough in certain details of some of the letters and numbers to know that they didn't come from the same source.

 

Yeah, I'm a little hypersensitive to font stuff after excess early exposure to Macs. I probably wouldn't have spotted the first slab as fake if I'd seen it alone, but seeing the two side-by-side, I could immediately see that something was up.

 

I've spent my entire adult life looking at fonts, so they're always the first place I go when I check the authenticity of a slabbed coin.

 

A nonsequitor: I looked at the BRNA which hosted your article and it seems to be a coin club for the SouthEast. It lists a couple of states including where I live. Do you think there would be any advantage to joining the BRNA or going to the shows?

I collect almost exclusively foreign as US type is too expensive. Also, according to some coin dealers, I collect only smaller coins. I didn't see any foreign or ancients dealers at the 2019 dealers listing.

Where I live there are no coin clubs where any of the members collect similar things to me.

 

What if the coin's made of anti-matter?

 

If the coin was made of anti-matter it would be drawn to the identical counterpart coin that was made of matter and the contact and explosion would rip a hole in the universe.

 

@jeffB, after reading your post, and going back to the photos of the side-by-sides, I have to admit that seeing the differences is extremely difficult for me. I am one that could easily be fooled. That's a Minnesota uff da.

Steve

 

Then I would think we have all been caught in a time warp and are experiencing more important matters, like what should I do with all these Tribbles?

 

Those go straight to "environmental damage".

Also, if you're using an electronic scale, the heavy gamma flux may cause inaccurate readings.

 

It definitely takes practice. The differences are obvious to me because I've looked at a lot of good and bad coins, with money riding on it, which really helps focus the attention.

 

But what if it's made of doesn't-matter?

 

Am I correct in assuming that making and selling copies of US coins, is unlawful?

 

Making, in the US or selling, in the US unmarked copies of US coins is illegal. Making them or selling them FROM China is not illegal - in China. Shipping them from China is not illegal for the Chinese seller. Importing them into the country IS illegal for the buyer here. Yess we do have laws against the making or selling of unmarked copies, but our laws do not apply in other countries. Some other countries do have laws making it illegal to make fakes of coins of other countries (so do we), but China only makes it illegal to make fake coins of China dated after 1949. Anything else is perfectly legal there.