I have an 1861 $20 Coronet Double Eagle that was graded by NGC in AU50. The coin comes in 1.8 Grains under weight can this be due to the wear on the coin ? I worry so much about the Chinese Fake Gold and Silver polluting the markets these days. Although Im 99% sure the coin is authentic. Can gold weight be lost through wear again it is an AU50 ?
aaaaaah lets take weight of coin what it should weigh and what a slab weighs … then weigh slabbed coin... that's as far as I got so far...….. and then if it way less then it should... I don't know its Saturday brain resting..
Do you think this coin was a fake or the ever so benevolent seller took the hit on this sale? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Saint-Gaud...=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
The coin was busted out of the slab by my late grandfather the previous owner, he kept the lookup number and grade slip from the slab . He liked holding the gold in his hand he stated and not having it cooped up in plastic.
The official weight tolerance on a new coin is 0.50 grains, but 1.8 grains on a lightly circulated coin sounds about right.
Gotcha. 1.8 grains is only a little over a tenth of a gram. Let's break down the possibilities. The Mint allows a certain tolerance (variation) in coin weights. For double eagles, though, that tolerance is very small -- 0.5 grains. Coins do lose weight through circulation, but very slowly until they're quite heavily worn. One of our moderators carried a gold coin as a pocket piece until it was worn down to about F15, and reported that it lost only 0.003 grams. This is still a topic of contention on the forum; some think that coins can lose more weight at earlier stages of wear, even if they don't have to. Most consumer-grade scales aren't super-accurate, and a 1/10-gram variance isn't surprising. What's the resolution of your scale, the smallest weight difference it can report? If you put a small scrap of paper on top of the coin while you're weighing it, does the reported weight change? Have you weighed the coin multiple times with the same scale, or weighed other double eagles with the same scale? Sorry for peppering you with questions, but I come from a chemistry background (among others), and I sometimes get all worked up about weighing things. Bottom line: if NGC authenticated it (and the NGC slab itself wasn't fake), it's almost certainly real. The weight variance you see probably isn't cause for worry. But it's worth more investigation.
The year 1861 was a very turbulent year in US history. I'd be interested in hearing if other double eagles from 1861 show a greater weight difference than the legally allowed tolerance. No matter what view you take on weight loss due to wear, the difference between MS70 and AU would be extremely small, perhaps beyond measurement on all but the most precise and accurate scientific scales.
My scale is a cheapy but I weighed other $20 Coronets on it . I weighed it in Grams, Troy OZ, Grains . The grains would seem to be the most accurate , if the scale is also. Memory has it the $20 Coronets in MS61-63 weighed in at 516 Grains each and the AU50 1861 weighed in at 514.2. The coin in my amateurish opinion looks like an EF45. It has worn spots on most high marks. I think it is real , but the weight loss on wear is an interesting subject
Ah, OK. If those are the only two weights that show up, it makes me think the scale has no better than 1/10 gram resolution (1/10 gram is about 1.5 grains). You may just be asking the scale to do something it really can't do. Do try adding little scraps of paper to the scale while the coin's on it, and see how the readout changes.
One of the last tests a TPG does on a coin - if they check it, is the weight. You can tell a real $20 Lib by look and feel.
Maybe in the old days, but now the Chinese counterfeits are so realistic ungraded and graded and the cores are made out of Tungsten. I bought 3 1908 St Gaudens, 2 1908's & 1 1908-D on EBAY from China which were advertised as copies for $3.00 each S&H included, The copies were almost perfectly struck the edges were blank and the obverse , reverse were off centered and they weighed 25 grams . They might have been test runs for the real counterfeits. The seller was shut down a few weeks later before I could buy more. Beware of the Chinese Fakes proliferating EBAY. Check out the EBAY sale I posted earlier what seller would let go a genuine 1924 St Gaudens for $200.00 ? The pictures look real but it has to be a fake. Check link below . https://www.ebay.com/itm/Saint-Gaud...=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
Who would buy a 1924 St Gaudens $20 gold for $200 from China? Not me. There are no bargains like that for gold. Ebay is the biggest fence for stolen and counterfeit merchandise on the planet, and don't really care to stop it as long as they get their 10%.
Very odd -- in the feedback for that transaction, the closing price is listed as $1175; still well below spot, but not quite as unrealistic.
Striking a counterfeit out of gold clad around a tungsten core has got to be very different from striking up a typical $3 base-metal copy. I don't think they'd be able to wrap a tungsten core in anything and strike it up for $3. But I'm no expert.
I did not say they would strike a tungsten core fake for $3.00 . My guess is they were practice runs on the dies . As I stated the weights were well under a Double Eagles weight.
