It looks like a real coin to me, though likely near valueless. I'm no expert on foreign coins, but I do know that the Republic of Liberia, along with many other tiny countries, churn out endless "collectible" coins. They tend to have a face value of 5 or 10 dollars, they tend to be stamped on cupro-nickel, and they tend to be worthless.
A fair and honest question: What is a 'real coin'? In Liberian dollars, 10LRD equals about 14 US cents but striking costs for some of these items guarantees that their only purpose was sale to collectors/tourists (or can you even buy them in Liberia?). If a country licenses production of things called coins that never have or will circulate in any form, are they actually coins? This is a trick question. Consider US mint items that similarly lack a circulating form. There was a time when we complained that the mint was charging us $2.10 for $.91 worth of proof coins but at least they were coins and could be spent for $.91 if times got rough and the protective packaging was worth something. I'll accept proofs at an advance over face as 'real' but when we started selling designs only for collectors at an advance many times over 'face' (even if technically you could spend them in the mint gift shop) we have to allow the question: What is a 'real coin'?
You are so right in your thoughts. What I meant is if this coin is is fake or not. I see many coins from Liberia in World coins book that are mostly for collectors but this one I could not find at all.
It looks like the Liberian commemoratives being sold here: http://www.pandaamerica.com/subcategory.asp?subcat=332&categ=23&grp=1 and here: http://www.blackmountaincoins.com/c/BMC/LIBERIA-COINS/sort-showall/.html for about $20. It's a real coin, just not very valuable. I didn't see your actual coin, however. It is interesting that most of the coins are about U.S. topics, perople, and history -- obviously for U.S. collectors.
Liberia was founded by america as a place where african americans could return to africa...where they could have their own country. Many of its citizens come from the US and certainly most Liberian coins like this will be geared towards America...they did a set of Preseditial coins before the US ever did.
The Schön does not list it either. But in such cases of coin diarrhea (Liberia is not the only country that "issues" such an awful lot every year), it is very difficult to keep track. Anyway, I assume this is an actual coin (in the sense of: authorized by the Liberian government), whoever produced and marketed it. This is a text about "Innovative Coinage" from a Mint Directors Conference six years ago: http://monetarium.ru/articles/InnovativeCoinageConcepts.pdf ... and a similar piece is mentioned and depicted on page 10. Christian
Here is one from 2002, yes they are real but simply produced for the collecting market and to raise revenue. They have been at it for some time, here is a Nolan Ryan that I have from 1993 This one is at least silver LOL
Picked it up at a coin show here in London a few years back and as a fan of Baseball it came as a bit of a shock to find it LOL
