1832 half cent & 1864 two cent Fakes common? how to tell real?

Had someone respond to an ad I put in for buying old coins and currency. Among the list of things they sent me was 1832 half cent and 1864 two cent.

questions: are there many fakes around of these? If yes how do you tell the difference? Thanks guys!

 

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So the answer to my first question on if there are fakes of these is yes?

 

With the proliferation of Chinese fakes, I would say we simply do not know. The two coins you list have not historically had large amounts of fakes simply since they were not very valuable. however, I have seen fakes of even more common coins. Older fakes of common coins are usually easy to tell by the method Doug speaks of. Modern Chinese fakes are much harder, but I have not SPECIFICALLY heard of these coins coming from China. Not yet anyway. When I was there I saw lots of coins that would retail for $300-$700 normally, along with the common, low end fakes like trade dollars made from base metal.

 

Thank you medoraman.

 

It is now possible to get every year of US Half cent from the Chinese factories. If you know the eraly coppers it isn't too hard to identify them but I have seen them fool a lot of non copper specialists.

 

I will address the two cent piece. First I will assume that you own or have access to a Red Book, as the pictures there can be of help for you. I am aware of only two manufacturers of two cent pieces in China. Examples of both have been examined closely, these are shown below. A study of these two specimens verses a genuine example will quickly yield the major differences. I would recommend that you study genuine examples, in hand, or via high resolution pictures available on the internet at major auction houses such as Heritage, Goldberg, Stacks, or TeleTrade.

I will include a picture of known genuine US Two Cent pieces from 1864 to aid you in comparing to the known counterfeit examples.

Good Luck

 

Thank you Conder, Great info PennyGuy!! Thank you! From the pictures it looks like it is fairly easy to tell. Thank you both again. I will update after I have them in hand.