What's with the reverse of this Morgan

I saw this on ebay. I have been looking at fakes and real trying to learn the ropes before I buy any raw coin of higher grade. Something is up with the wings. Ice

http://cgi.ebay.com/1887-MORGAN-SIL...3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66:2|65:1|39:1|240:1318

 

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It looks like a fake. The color is real dull looking, like the China counterfeits. Something is going on with the left wing. Doesn't coincide with any VAMs I know of.

 

Gotta love this comment " A must have item for any 1887's era coin collector!" It was such a long era too! To have all those coins from that era would take a collector a lifetime to obtain so many coins. BTW, there is something wierd going on, I cannot understand why the coin looks like there is no wear on it, but the wings look really wierd.
Cheers,
Chris Kampmann

 

I don't think the coin is fake. I think it's an image cobbled together from at least a few different coins. No minting process that I've ever heard of could do that to that left wing. But a shoddy cut and paste photoshop job could. Just my take.
Guy~

 

It could be a very weak strike, I have seen a few where the wing looks like that, but usually the rest of the side is a very weak strike too. I think Coleguy might be right, maybe the seller was messing around with the picture, because it definitely looks weird.

 

Yeah. I'd bet that's a Chinese counterfeit. For one, it looks way way too clean. Not a bag mark, scuff, scratch anywhere on it, which is almost impossible on any Morgan. The cheek is perfectly clean. Yet where's the natural luster you'd normally see on these? Why wouldn't a coin this perfect be submitted for a MS65 to 66 grade by now?

Chinese crap is my vote. Even the reverse is perfectly clean. Had they beat it up a little, you'd probably never be able to tell.

 

Its a fake ... When piece of the LOW pionts of the coin are seemingly worn away with the high points its a bogus coin .. wing areas.

 

I'm gonna step up and say that I think the coin is real... the pictures are just atrocious and probably have been manipulated with photoshop to make it look clean... It looks like the image was ran through a photoshop filter or 2 making it look very peculiar. If I get some time this afternoon I'll see if I can recreate it.

 

Why would someone counterfiet such a common date? dd: Might be a gresase spot on the wing. The rest of the coin doesn't scream fake.

 

The counterfeiters in China have been. Common coins are more likely to sneak through a purchasers defenses because nobody assumes they are fake. If you can sell them for more than your cost, your making a profit.

That being said, I think this coin is real and the image has been altered.

 

Besides the wing, something bothers me about the E in ONE and the M in AMERICA. In addition, the O's in ONE and DOLLAR look a little different from each other (the sides of the O in DOLLAR seem a little thicker), yet the ones on my PCGS 1887 are identical. Also, the second T in STATES looks a little lopsided.

 

I'm no expert on Morgans so I can't comment on the real/fake issue.

I do have photographic experience as I was a pro photographer for a many years:

The reverse is lit from SW so the light strikes the edges that run in a different direction to the light. As the lines along the tip of the eagles left wing (right side as we look at it) run SW-NE the light does not hit any of the edges but instead runs along them therefore giving them no definition and making the wingtip look flat.

Just a little bit of information/opinion that might help the discussion of this thread.

 

The lighting could explain the wing and the discrepancies in the O's, but the T is definitely lopsided, and the M appears to be too close to the A. Also, that E in ONE really bugs me, even taking the lighting into consideration.

The E in STATES also bothers me. It looks tilted. Hold up a card to the picture so that it is flush with left side of the E and dissects the coin at the bottom. The card will pass far to the left of W in WE, and go between the E in ONE and the D in DOLLAR. However, on my genuine coin, the card will nearly touch the left edge of the W in WE, and will run right over the designer's initial M in the wreath ribbon.

 

We've discussed the topic of Chinese counterfeits to death here. The Chinese are now and have been for a long time, legally been making common coins such as Washington quarters, Barber dimes, common date Morgans, large cents, gold coins and everything else for many years..... and illegally shipping them over here without copy stamps.

Everything is suspect now. Most here including myself would never be able to tell the difference in a picture because they are that good. Nothing obvious to look for, except maybe luster and perfectly clean coins not in slabs like this one. Some they tone to make them look old.

It ruins it for all the loose real ones but what can you do? We're flooded with more counterfeits every year.

 

Real coin, crappy scan, IMO...Mike

 

Lotsa liquify and the blur tool.

 

The right wing looks like somebody sandblasted it. Not really but something is up with it. I would pass on bidding on it.

 

Well, here's a Real McCoy for comparison

 

Yes I agree Vess1. It's almost impossible to tell from this picture. Thanks for bringing this to coin talk post ICE. Too many points of suspicion shouts.eh eh no no

 

I agree with real coin, photoshopped to death. Wonder what's hiding underneath all the alterations done to it??