Determining Authenticity of Trade Dollar from eBay

Ditto on the above. IMO, trade dollars should only be purchased in slabs from reputable companies. There are just too many fakes out there.

 

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I have bought 4 fake CC trade dollars on eBAy, one in a fake ANACS slab, one from a 30+ year old collection owned by a fellow I am convinced did not know what it was, and 2 from a fellow who made 10,000+ in just over a year selling chopmarked CC fakes. (He disappeared once he was threatened with a visit by the INS and/or Secret Service) They were all pretty decent fakes, correct weight, made from transfer dies. Even the real ones, in most cases, have been cleaned or messed with. Sound advice to only buy in reliable TPG slabs (but not from China!) and examine very carefully as soon as it arrives.

 

my friend bought one from someone on this forum and its a fake and such a good one that even people who write about coins in respected magazines have to beat their head to figure it out and cant be 100% certain

 

Sort of scary, huh? There are some extremely good transfer die fakes out there. I have a TD in an ICG holder that I keep waffling on whether it's real or not. One that sold on eBAy I could only tell it was fake because the image was about 5x and you could see some dentil problems. At 1:1 or 2:1 you couldn't tell. (of course, 'in hand' the situation would be different).

 

I even heard they're using 90% silver planchets so the specific gravity is right on on those , scary and they keep getting better .
rzage

 

How does the ICG slab look? So far I've only heard of fake PCGS & NGC holders .
rzage

 

It looks ok, because I submitted it to ICG myself. Rest assured, some of the best minds in Beijing are working on it as we speak...

 

And The Morgan Mint did create unauthorized fake ICG slab shells for use with their own products. Very few of them ever got out though. As soon as they appeared Cameron Keifer and I contacted ICG, provided them with a sample and they got the Morgan Mint's promotion shut down. The Morgan Mint then altered their shells. They still LOOK like ICG shells but are actually rectangular in shape.

 

i bought a trade $ in a pci slab that i sent in to anacs to cross over and they said it was fake,not the slab but the $

 

These links may be of some help:

http://coinauctionshelp.com/Counterfeit_Silver_Dollars_Fake_Trade_Dollars_Fake_Morgan_Dollar.html

http://www.silver-coins.org/1876_trade_dollar.html

 

Coin Arrived Today - Obverse

Weight, magnetic test both checked OK.

 

Coin Arrived Today - Reverse

 

It looks good to me but I'm no expert and you practically have to be an expert with these to know for sure. But I will give it a thumbs up anyways. :thumb:

Ribbit

 

Looks quite different from the photos, and I see nothing that immediately says countefeit. However, I've sent a PM to an expert in hopes he will weigh in....Mike

 

Very nice photos. I feel that the rims are too wide- they should be about as wide, or just slightly wider than, the length of a dentil. A number of the dentils, to me, appear weak, misshapen, and possibly pitted (I could be fooled here by lighting or gunk on coin). The star shapes look variable too. I think the reverse lettering looks sort of fat and rounded. I'm no expert, but my opinion (and that's all it is) is that it is likely to be a transfer die copy.

 

I'm glad to see the 8 doesn't have a gap in the top. I wish I knew more about these but I don't. It is the obverse type 1 and reverse type 1. Keep this in mind when comparing to other 1876s trade dollars. Have you weighed the coin yet?

 

Weighs 27.2 grams.

 

3MP Digital Camera Obverse

Coin is counterfeit.

Calibrated my scale today with 25 ounce master weight. Scale was reading too high.

Coin in actuality weighs 21.2 grams.

Going back to seller!

 

3MP Digital Camera Reverse

Coin is counterfeit - See above post.