Counterfeit or real?

Discussion in 'US Coins Forum' started by TheHoff, Apr 15, 2021.

  1. TheHoff

    TheHoff Member

    Looking for help in determining if this trade dollar is real or counterfeit.
    20210415_072723.jpg 20210415_072757.jpg
     
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  3. potty dollar 1878

    potty dollar 1878 Well-Known Member

    I don't like the looks of it I'm going with fake.
     
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  4. William F

    William F Well-Known Member

    Do you have a picture of the edge?
     
  5. SensibleSal66

    SensibleSal66 U.S Casual Collector / Error Collector

    Looks like a " potty dollar" . Did you weigh her and take measurements ?
     
    capthank likes this.
  6. furryfrog02

    furryfrog02 Well-Known Member

    I agree. Doesn't look legit. I'm just starting studying trade dollars so I could be wrong. Waiting to hear what others think.
     
    capthank likes this.
  7. Beefer518

    Beefer518 Well-Known Member

    Denticles (especially on the reverse) don't look good, so I'm going with fake.
     
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  8. ldhair

    ldhair Clean Supporter

    I'll go with real. Just my guess without looking it up.
     
  9. TheHoff

    TheHoff Member

    I'll get one
     
    SensibleSal66 likes this.
  10. masterswimmer

    masterswimmer A Caretaker, can't take it with me

    Fake

    The reverse tells the story.

    Look at the tip of the lower arrow. On the original from PCGS it goes to the middle of the '2' in 420. On the OP'ers it only goes to the middle between the '20'.

    Now look at the tip of the olive branch that passes below the eagles talons. It ends between the 'I' and 'N' in the word GRAINS. The OP'ers it ends at the 'N'.

    Now check out the curl in the left side of the ribbon in E PLURIBUS UNUM. The curl should be to the right of the eagles wing. The curl on the OP'ers coin lines up with the wing.

    That should be enough, unless there are different die pairs I'm missing.

    From the PCGS website:
    upload_2021-4-15_8-50-1.png

    From the original post:

    upload_2021-4-15_8-52-49.png
     
  11. masterswimmer

    masterswimmer A Caretaker, can't take it with me

    Another big tell is the talon on the right. Try to locate the two 'toes'. On the original there is nothing between those talons. The OP'ers coin has what looks like the end of the arrow where the nock would be, between the talons.
     
  12. Evan Saltis

    Evan Saltis OWNER - EBS Numis LLC Supporter

    Great observations :)
     
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  13. John Burgess

    John Burgess Well-Known Member

    eddiespin, William F, Hoky77 and 3 others like this.
  14. chascat

    chascat Well-Known Member

    Looks real to me
     
  15. Southernman189

    Southernman189 Well-Known Member

    weight sometimes tells a lot and NEVER forget the old magnet, not always a dead give away but worth a try and costs nothing but the time to do it.
     
    Revello likes this.
  16. 1865King

    1865King Well-Known Member

    As the picture came up on my screen the first thing to show up was the head of liberty. It looked questionable right away. I'm not very familiar with trade dollars so I wouldn't have noticed the issue with the arrows but, the head looked more like a skull with sunken eyes. The coin also appears to have been artificially / chemically aged.
     
  17. John Johnson

    John Johnson Well-Known Member

    If it's fake, it's a very good fake. I don't see a single indication of it at all.

    I'd like for the posters who said fake to point out at least one indicator that it's not real, because I can't see one.
     
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  18. Mike Thornton

    Mike Thornton Learning something new everyday.

    Agree, they look off and too much space between them in the OP's example.
     
    Beefer518 likes this.
  19. whopper64

    whopper64 Well-Known Member

    I'm certainly not an expert on Trade Dollars, but has anyone noticed on the obverse of the posted coin that "In God We Trust" the "s" in Trust is not aligned the way the "s" is in the PCGS photo? Just my observation.
     
  20. TheHoff

    TheHoff Member

     

    Attached Files:

  21. Beefer518

    Beefer518 Well-Known Member

    Look at the deticles on the reverse between the second 'S' in STATES, and the first 'A' in AMERICA. They're almost non-existent.

    Denticles are the very first thing I look at if I'm in doubt. They are almost never good enough on fakes, and if they pass the sniff test, then I'll move to other specifics. But 99.99% of fakes can't reproduce denticles well enough.

    If you read all of the posts, the position of the arrows aren't correct either, but that could be the difference from one die to the next (I haven't looked into it, because IMO, don't need to spend that much time on this coin to know with a certain degree of accuracy that it's fake).
     
    John Johnson likes this.
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