Here is a cool coin with a cool story. I recently picked this one up from a friend. These coins were originally thought to be the real deal... and as you can see this coin was graded by ANACS. It was later determined that these coins were all contemporary counterfeits and they no longer holder these coins. Enjoy!
I remember that about 6 years ago. It stirred up quite a hornet's nest at the time. Enlarging the reverse of your coin, you can see the two linear marks in the field between the lefthand wreath and the eagle's wing and the small lump to the southwest of the mintmark. It's still a keeper, though, just for the history lesson. Thanks for posting it. Chris
These coins are still collected and since the announcement that they are no longer going to holder them they still bring a decent amount of money.
All I can say is, that is one **** of a counterfeit . I imagine there are many many more that had found their way into any of the top three TPG's holders. I bet most of these came out of the billions that were once used in Vegas during the early 60's and 70's .
Hard to say how many got into the holders. My guess is more than they claim. The official claims were something like 95 Micro O fakes in PCGS slabs, I don't remember how many in ANACS slabs, and 8 in NGC slabs. The number in the NGC slabs was so low because NGC decided in 1999, years before the others, that they were fakes. I think the number in the slabs is higher because none of the services began specifically identifying the Micro O varieties until mid 1998. Any Micro O coins submitted before that time would have simply been slabbed as regular coins and there would be no specific record of them.
Here's the PCGS Announcement Link: http://www.pcgs.com/articles/article_view.chtml?artid=4400&universeid=313&type=1
I don't believe there is any reliable data to say with 100% certainty the total number of " Counterfeits " that found their way into the holders of the top Three TPG's . The above numbers are probably inaccurate and on the low end of the true count. It's always a worthwhile topic of discussion as recent finds present themselves. Thanks for the post.