HELP! Request for information on Omega High Relief from CU

Great story on this coin, been following the coins history for a long time. I appreciate the posted information. I would love to own one of these coins.

 

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From Insights #13:

Insider, let me make sure I understand this. You are saying that the TOPS of letters are at the BOTTOM of dies (the deep parts) and that if you see the same error /defect repeating on multiple letters (i.e., multiple low points on the dies)...that's a sign of a fake because it shows multiple defects on letters ?

I have to say: these newsletters, even though dated, are fascinating and very-well written. Still have useful information. Thanks to Insider and KP for making the PDFs available. FANTASTIC reading on the story with the MCMVII HR's and other coins as well, plus lots of quick tidbits which I like to read....bang-bang-bang...quick and to the point.

Great work, Insider !

 

Wow, check this out from the newsletter though it's not relevant to the MCMVII HR's:

Really good stuff in these newsletters. Nice job, Insider !

 

So it seems like the "as many as 50" number at the 1971 ANA was just a guess two years after the fact based on rumors. The angry dealers were just the two whose coins were rejected. The reason I was digging into it is because I recall that TTTT claimed that they were all "fenced" through a single coin dealer (I'm not going to read through all that again to confirm). What surprises me is that no one was arrested, nor does it appear even that a shady dealer was fingered in the community over it. It seems like the first thing your "angry dealers" would do is go back to the source and raise hell. Nobody named any names? Nobody contacted authorities?

 

But there does appear to have been an increase in the weekly or monthly submissions or sales requests or whatever Insider and others mentally kept track of.

If I own a coin shop...and I see 2-3 MCMVII HRs a month offered to me...and all of a sudden I see 10-12 in one month, let alone a few months running....something is up, right ?

Maybe he was a legit dealer who got fooled ?

If he was given 50 (or whatever) MCMVII HR's...maybe he was told/expected to "dribble them out" over time and he got greedy and tried to dump more than the market could reasonably support without suspicion ?

 

OK, I finally read the entire 35-page CU thread on The Mafia & The Omegas....my thoughts:

(1) I find it hard to believe that Organized Crime (OC) would want to make counterfeit coins of any type, even a pricey one like the Omega High Reliefs (which probably cost about $1,000 - $3,000 at the time they were made/sold). It's just not how OC operates....trying to fool experts and selling thousands (?) of coins to dealers. Why not make art fakes of Leonardo Da Vinci or Rembrandt or whomever ?

(2) The level of detail that someone who was in his teens at the time -- press tonage, strikes of the press, etc. -- are not the kind of thing any kid is going to recall, except maybe a hard-core numismatist. And who is discussing those details anyway ? Bonanno isn't. I doubt his lawyer dad is, either.

(3) Hard to believe in 35-plus pages of typing he couldn't spell "Gaudens" correctly once !!

(4) There is NO evidence that someone stole the 1907 MCMVII HR dies. There was no Mafia or OC at that time from 1907 or 1908. And they just stayed inactive/hidden for 55 years ? Like most of his claims, I can't DISPROVE this...nor can I state that it is PROVEN. It's POSSIBLE -- just not PROVEN.

(5) TTTT seemed fixated that dealers and experts didn't publish more info on the Omega HRs, like how to ID it for professional liability reasons. Maybe because there were only a few dozen or hundred made instead of thousands or tens of thousands ?

(6) Bonanno Quote: "I sure had fun making those fakes, but it was more fun to expose the fakes". If he was so careful, under 24/7 FBI and camera surveillance...he's going to admit to making countefeit coins ? To a stranger ?

(7) I agree with this quote: "More information about the Omega coins has been released in the last 14 hours than in the last 49 years" on this thread." But the give-and-take with the CU people also made the thread, and those are lost to date. And Insider's comments and the fact that he was involved with the discovery of the Omega High Reliefs and could counter some of the errors/overstatements of TTTT....added alot to the thread.

TTTT posts are good STORY TELLING. Insider's newsletter is GOOD FACTS on the Omega HRs.

(8) My Main Objection: If Bonanao talked about this to associates or friends...who would even know what he was talking about ? Who the hell knew what a Saint-Gaudens DE was or an MCMVII HR? Were they numismatists ?

(9) This could be Insider or another veteran at CU: "I've had a chance to go over most of the posts again. I don't have time to post at the moment but here are some things to consider:

• After all these years, I believe much of what TTTT has posted happened. Mr. B was involved, where the coins were made, and TTTT connection. However, there is a lot of unverifiable info, conjecture, and misinformation in these threads. For example, a Denver Mint ledger page was briefly posted as a joke and TTTT used this to confirm that HR dies left the Mint. It is a shame this joke caused more misinformation to the story.

• This is what I believe so far based on the coins themselves: TTTT knows a lot of what went on. NO GENUINE HR DIES WERE USED TO PRODUCE THE FAKES. Every fake "Omega" $20 was produced by the same dies. I've examined other counterfeit HR's (not "Omega's") but they are not very deceptive to a professional authenticator. So, I believe transfer dies were delivered to Mr. B. IMO, NO first batch w/o the "Omega" exists. They would have turned up. The genuine HR coins were struck on a "huge" medal press. Mr. B's press was a "baby."

• I believe what is left to do is to analyse a few genuine coins, a few Omega's, and a few 50 Pesos. Gold and silver mined from different sources have different trace elements. This will probably determine if 50 Pesos were used for planchets or not.

(10) Remember, the MCMVII HRs needed 3 parts: obverse die, reverse die, and edge collar. There isn't much talk about the obverse and reverse quality of the coins, except for the "wormy tool marks" and the Omega sign. Can't recall anything about the edge but that's tough to fake.

CaptHen : "As I said way back when, they would have to have been struck in an original three-piece collar as well. A fake three-piece collar would exhibit evidence that would expose the pieces as modern strikes, or counterfeits if you will."

(11) TTTT said: "You now know about the vast network an organized crime employs. The vast majority of the coins went thru investment bankers or houses. ROGERB noted that Walter Breen represented a house or houses. We know he was the best guy out there at the time and we know he authenticated these coins. We also know, he did every thing in his power right up to the very end to defend the coin as authentic. I am not insinuating anything, but I do have a question. Was Walter Breen actually convinced these coins were real or did he find himself in a terrible position and his reputation was on the line or did he know all along that it was a fake? Food for Thought!"

Does anybody know if Walter Breen ever commented on the Omega HR's ? Did he get fooled ? I have no idea. Have never seen Bowers or Akers comment either on the coins, maybe they have something obscure in the Newman Portal or in some auction catalog.

Like I said, this thread was a great story. There isn't much information on the Omega HRs, so any information -- even if partly false, embellished, or incorrect -- is still worth reading so long as parts of it were true. Now...how much was ? 20% ? 50% ? 75% ? Makes a big difference.

Maybe TTTT will come over to CT. Again, for a story, the CU thread is good reading...but for facts and actual investigative sleuthing backed up by facts, read Insiders' outstanding newsletter. Hopefully, if he has more newsletters with stuff on the Omega's, actual MCMVII HR's, or even plain ordinary Saints, it's available online or maybe he'll post it. Apparently, some letters are missing which is too bad.

 

That was me. He took it hook, line and sinker. I didn't do it to "cause more misinformation", I did it to expose him. Perhaps it was mean, but I saw through it from the get-go. Every tidbit of information he ever got gets folded into his story.

 

Yeah, I noticed that. Which makes what he did tell that was LIKELY TRUE or CERTAINLY TRUE that much tougher to discern.

Reminds me during The Tawana Brawley Hoax when the FBI wanted to find out who was lying and created a fictional man missing a forefinger from a magazine photo, called him "Mickey Carlton", and said he might be connected to the "crime." Anybody who said they saw 4-fingered "Mickey Carlton" -- they knew that person was lying.

 

I'll experiment with that BUT I find it easier to respond inside with a different color.

GoldFinger1969, asked:

"Insider, let me make sure I understand this. You are saying that the TOPS of letters are at the BOTTOM of dies (the deep parts) and that if you see the same error /defect repeating on multiple letters (i.e., multiple low points on the dies)...that's a sign of a fake because it shows multiple defects on letters ?"

Yes, the deepest part of the die becomes the highest part of a fully struck coin. Since coins don't circulated the same, unless it was a defect on the hub, identical coins should not have the exact same hits on the tops of the letters because it is very hard to nick the deepest part of a die.

I have to say: these newsletters, even though dated, are fascinating and very-well written. Still have useful information. Thanks to Insider and KP for making the PDFs available. FANTASTIC reading on the story with the MCMVII HR's and other coins as well, plus lots of quick tidbits which I like to read....bang-bang-bang...quick and to the point. Great work, Insider !"

Those newsletters were written over thirty years ago. Please ignore the "we" instead of "I" used in the articles. I'm also reading through them and will be searching for Vol. 1 Issues.

In 1986, the major services were an a learning curve. The dealers were almost fifteen years behind the authenticators trained on stereo microscopes at INSAB (the 2nd authentication service and 1st TPGS) and eleven years behind the ANACS guys They were putting altered coins in slabs mostly out of ignorance. However, one story I love to tell is at a major show I informed the owner of a major TPGS of this with thought of helping them become better at detecting altered surfaces. I told him these errors were all over the show and then walked a few feet to a case full of slabs - eyeballed an obvious altered coin from three feet away and we took it out of the case. His reaction to an 1881-S altered dollar graded MS-65 was "It's only an 1881-S!" Class over. See you.

GoldFinger1969, posted: "This could be Insider or another veteran at CU: "I've had a chance to go over most of the posts again. I don't have time to post at the moment but here are some things to consider:"

It was I.

 

Insider, any luck in tracking down the ENTIRE CU THREAD on the Omega's in its entirety ?

 

Nope and I'm banned from CU for trying to educate the ignorant about edited

PS Last month we saw a brand new fake HR $20. It fooled the dealer but it was not very deceptive to us. The color was good gold though.

 

When you see something like that, any idea if it is recent or maybe was in someone's SDB for 30 or 40 years before the recent sales and showing up at your firm ?

 

Recent, within the last few years as this was the first I've seen. We'll need to see if others are around.

 

Is it possible to determine if something was struck in the last 5 years vs. 30-40 years ago ?

Assume you know it's a fake Saint....can you approximate when it was struck or would that require every expensive metallurgical equipment ?

 

What was the date range of the original thread?

 

I'm not sure, but I am going to guestimate 2015 or 2015 is when it started, no later than 2017.

 

January 6-15, 2018.

 

Any more seen since, Insider ?

 

I take it nobody was able to track down the original back-and-forth of the infamous CU thread involving The Omega Man ?

 

As far as I can tell it was deleted. I have screen caps of the most relevant parts.

There was this followup that went nowhere:

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/12548950#Comment_12548950