I'm in China where there are lots of coins left over from the 19th century China trade. The emperor decreed that only silver could be used to pay for tea and silk. Unfortunately, many of the coins now on offer are bogus. One i've got that I think is bogus is a 1799 draped bust dollar. Like the first example on this page http://mywebpages.comcast.net/reidgold/draped_busts/page_7.html it has denticles that do not reach the edge. Like the second, it has the date in a straight line, not curved to follow the edge, and it has a reeded edge. On the positive side, it is in very nice condition. As a non-expert guessing after reading a web page or two and looking at some pictures, I'd say at least 40 on the standard scale. There's only a tiny bit of wear visible in the hair; everything else is utterly sharp. Are such coins worth anything?
if properly labelled and sold as a fake on eBay you should be able to get $5-$25 for it, base on how good a fake it is and what it's composition is. good luck!
more Chinese dollars Thanks. However, I've no intention of selling the fakes I have. They aren't worth enough to make it worth letting them go. There are other coins I think might be real. Some of those I'll send to friends in the US, hoping for the best. Of course many of them will also be bogus, just good enough to fool me. I'm just hoping a few of them turn out to be real. Anyon know a good page on identifying fake Seated Liberty or Trade dollars? Those are fairly common here and I cannot tell which are bogus, with one exception: the 1799 and 1797 Trade Dollars are extremely common here but obviously wrong since the US did not produce any until 1873!
Thanks for the link about fakes. This will go into my numismatic library. Good luck with finding the real deal over there. I hear China is the home of some of the great fakes in the market today. I'm to uneducated about these types of coins to even think about collecting any just yet for fear of throwing away money on fakes. Thanks again.
You can find that and a whole lot more if you take the time to explore all the links here - Counterfeits