Recently imaged this coin for someone, and...something is making my Spidey sense tingle... Is it just me...or is there something going on with this coin? It's giving me a counterfeit kind of vibe. Just looks like the devices are standing out a lot more than a coin with this amount of wear would show.
The portrait of the Kaiser is rather harsh in the details - the eyes are definitely a giveaway that this is an early 21st century "Chinese tribute piece".
How does the edge look? Chinese-made replicas often give themselves away by having an unusual edge that differs from known genuine pieces.
Unfortunately, I no longer have the piece in hand. The owner sends me batches of coins to image for a book he's working on. This one was in the last batch and has already been returned to the owner. I had my doubts when it was here, but didn't want to potentially damage it by going outside my stated directive of imaging the coins.
Maybe I'm wrong, but....1888? I don't think things are adding up. I don't have time to check, but this design looks 1914ish to my memory.. Edit, I am wrong. But it looks bad to me.
It was the "Three Kaisers" year, Wilhelm I died in January, his son Friedrich III died 99 days later of larynx cancer, then his son Wilhelm II assumed the throne in June 1888. The reverse with the smaller skinnier eagle was used in 1888, but not in 1914.
FWIW, there is an almost exact match on Ali Express...of course, their example shows the word "copy" on both sides. Which we all know means every coin they send out will also have the word copy stamped on it...lol
For the record, here's a picture of what I take to be a genuine Wilhelm II 1888A 5 mark piece. For sure the jaw is not nearly as well defined as in the referenced picture. Also the eye looks different.
It is either a fake or has been tooled (altered). The ends of the ribbon on the reverse in the crown and the shield seem to have a lot more detail than the genuine piece shown are obvious, but there is a lot going on there for sure.
