beat up 1909-S VDB lincoln

It has a market provided it's authenticated. This sale you're showing proves it.

 

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The advantage that the fake you linked has, however, is that it is clearly marked as a COPY as required by law.

The fake that the OP was duped into purchasing was unfortunately not so-branded.

I really hope that the OP is able to return the coin and get their money back, since this is a really expensive coin!

 

IDK, I guess the only way to be 100% sure is send it in to be graded, if it comes out as fake, well darn, its not the first blunder I've made while buying coins but it is going to be one of the costliest

 

I mean, you could waste another $40 on this coin, but why?

I guarantee you it is fake. You don't need to send it in to be 100% sure - I'm 100% sure it's fake based only on these pictures.

Return it and get your money back if you can.

 

Rule number one never buy rare raw examples of coins uncertified even if the certified examples are much more expensive your new and need to learn keep that in mind and good luck for the future

 

May I ask the source of your second (bottom) photo which you're using as a reference? I ask because the center bar of the "B" should not be horizontal on the genuine piece, but slanted. If you enlarge the photos that physics-fan3.14 posted, you'll see that the center bar is slanted down.

 

yeah, I guess i learned that the hard way with a $600+ coin, ouch.
Lesson effectually learned lol

 

thats a 1909 VDB that I own that I just took a picture of a few minutes ago

 

I believe like everyone else here that it's fake. I verbally said it to myself before reading a single reply.

Sending it in to a TPG would be shelling out good money after bad money. A losing proposition.

 

You bought it raw. If you try to sell it raw, somebody else will, too. Just don't make any representations it's real, as you don't yet know that.

 

Here's an informative link from PCGS. Scroll to the bottom and you'll see what I mean by the "B" with the slanted crossbar. I guess most counterfeiters just go with the regular "B."

https://www.pcgs.com/news/counterfeit-vs-authentic-1909-s-vdb-lincoln-cents

 

In my post, I explained that these coins (I bought them last month just to see the quality of these fakes for educational purposes) DO NOT have "COPY" on them - I expected them to, as you point out by law. This is probably a big selling point for them as the word gets out. As you can see in the image on the page (link I provided) the word "COPY" is printed on the image and not engraved/stamped.

Here is the coin. They are almost comical in color, weight, and as you mentioned "they just look wrong". They do, however, show "wear" (artificial made) and scratches. The coin came just as it is here:



Such a shame - I made sure to label this as "REPLICA/FAKE" so if I get hit by a bus and my boys try to cash it in, they can save themselves and potential buyers some trouble.

 

The weakness of the details and weirdness of the rims do share similarities with the OP's fake.

 

Agreed - and, you have the option of buying these coins in 5 different finishes. Such a shame.

 

Look how wide and fuzzy the lettering is on the top one (the fake) compared with the bottom one (presumably real). On the top one, look how the border between letter and background is soft and rounded. That's what people mean by "mushy", at least as I understand it. I've seen it on quite a lot of fakes.

The double rim on the reverse is also pretty common on fakes.

If you can, return it. If you can't, see what kind of heat you can bring down on the seller. Edit: bring that heat even if you can return it.

 

The coin looks like it was molded, and not struck to me. A lot of fine detail is lost when molding a coin, and that appears what we are seeing in the lettering especially. I bet if we go take a look under a scope, there we be severe bubbling all over the field from imperfections in the mold.

 

unfortunately they share more than similarities, they're almost EXACTLY the same...

 

The problem is its been more than 30 days since i bought it, so I probably will not be able to return it but I will definitely give the seller some heat and see if I can at least get a partial refund! Normally I would have posted about this as soon as I received it but I'm in the middle of moving and havent had much spare time to study my coins...

 

I just looked back at my order history and realized the biggest mistake that I made, the seller only had one photo of the actual coin, all the rest were stock photos, that should have tipped me off but I was fairly new to buying coins at that point (so far my collection had only been what I found in change) so I didn't realize that the stupidest thing I could do is buy something based on stock photos, (I found out soon after when purchasing a less expensive coin that it was not smart, and will never do it again!) These are the stock photos she used;
.