I was wondering if these coins are real, and if they are, if they're worth any money. All opinions are greatly appreciated. I know the scans aren't the best, so if they are entirely insufficient I can try to get better images out of the scanner. Thanks in advance for those who respond.
The scans aren't very useful, but if you got all these coins in a single lot, I'm going to go out on a limb and say "fakes one and all". I recognize many very rare or desirable dates, and rare coins don't travel in herds.
They were in a safe from a house fire (salvage and demolition). There were a couple hundred coins in it. I took them to a buddy who collects coins and these were the ones he picked out he thought I should have checked out. Thing is, I'm over a hundred miles from the nearest collectibles shop as I live in a very rural area, so I don't really want to drive there unless there's at least a chance something is real. I'll try to get better images and a picture of the other coins as well.
Hmm. Yes, please get better images. One thing that may help is if you can put a black background behind them and re-scan them; that will help bring up the brightness on the coins (they're too dark to see detail right now). The best thing, though, would be to set your scanner to its highest resolution, scan a few of them individually, crop the resulting images to show only the coin, and post those. That'll give us bigger pictures, and while it won't be enough to let us pronounce them genuine, it'll be enough to start ruling out a lot of potential fakes.
I'm sure you know but don't clean them. Handle them only by the edges. If real, you have a small fortune. With better images, we can help.
Do this when you scan individual coins. Set the scan area for 2 x 2 inches, and as mentioned, lighten the finished scan, which is easy to do on most scanners. Do not use the entire scanner glass and then crop away 5 or 6 inches on each side - that invariably leads to bad results. Scan at 600dpi.
I finally figured out how to adjust the settings on my scanner (they come with the most terrible software anymore). The color is accurate. All of them have heat damage to some extent and the metal has darkened as a result. If greater contrast is needed I can tinker with the images in PhotoShop. Thank you for the advice. I did wipe the soot off of them with a soft cotton cloth (there's some red threads visible in the scans from it), but other than that I didn't do anything. As for the small fortune, my guess is they're fake then. But it'll be interesting to know with more certainty than I can bring to bear. I appreciate everyone's attention as well as your quick, informative, and helpful replies.
Yeah, it's really hard to tell, but if these were picked out of a larger lot by someone who recognizes key dates, it helps knock out my initial "couldn't possibly be real" knee-jerk reaction. Even with this much heat damage, real examples of those dates would be worth conserving and getting authenticated. By "conserving", I mean "having them treated by professionals who know what will help restore the coins without further damaging them". Even wiping off soot with a soft cloth will damage coins, although with these I don't think you've done significant harm. By "getting authenticated", I mean sending the coins to a company (a "third-party grader") that will examine the coins, offer a professional opinion on their condition and authenticity, and encapsulate each one in a tamper-resistant holder ("slab") labeled with its date and condition. Both conservation and authentication/grading cost money, but you typically make back that money and then some when you go to sell the coins. If I saw one of these on eBay, I'd be unlikely to bid -- it's just too hard to tell whether it's authentic from a photo or scan. But if I saw one in a slab, I might bid. (And I'd probably be outbid.) There are several grading services, and a lot of different opinions about which ones to use. I won't rekindle that fight here, but I will say that some companies do both conservation and authentication/grading, and prices vary widely -- from $15 or so per coin to slab, plus $12 to conserve an entire batch of coins, up to $50 or more per coin just for slabbing, depending on how you submit the coins. If I were in your shoes, I'd pick out a few of the coins (maybe with help from folks here) and see if they authenticate. If they do, many or most of these coins would be worth sending through the process. If they don't, you can probably assume that all the rest are fakes, too.
I would be optimistic about conservation, for this reason -- both the silver and copper coins look alike, suggesting that they have some kind of coating resulting from the fire, and not that the metal of the coins has reacted with some other chemical, permanently damaging the surfaces. However, this "theory" remains to be proved. Conservation (first) seems like a good idea to me. I doubt that anyone can judge authenticity of the coins in their present condition. I think one silver and one copper is sufficient to see if conservation is worth the effort and expense.
Most of them have a very grainy and similar appearance to them... the best idea would probably be to buy a scale and weigh the coins to see if they are the correct weight. From the photos it looks like they could be casts
I assume a company doing conservation would verify the authenticity before starting their work (and earning their fees), or, that point could be stipulated by the consignor. I have never in my life seen a "lot" of coins containing so many key dates...
I weighed them on a .1g scale, and here are the weights in order of the images I posted: 1 - 2.9g 2 - 5.4g 3 - 5.0g 4 - 2.8g 5 - 3.0-3.1g 6 - 5.0g 7 - 5.0g 8 - 2.4g 9 - 5.0g 10 - 3.0g 11 - 3.1g 12 - 3.0g 13 - 4.9g 14 - 3.1g 15 - 2.4g 16 - 2.4-2.5g 17 - 5.8g 18 - 10.6g 19 - 11.2g 20 - 10.2g 21 - 2.4g 22 - 4.9g 23 - 2.9g 24 - 2.4g 25 - 5.0g 26 - 2.9-3.0g 27 - 2.9-3.0g EDIT: Fixed incorrect order. I also managed to get the bottom half of the safe open and found it packed with about about 200-300 pounds of foreign coins. What would be a good reference to use for trying to identify them? A book recommendation or two would be good. They look to be sorted basically by country and there's over 100 of them. On a side note as an FYI, should anyone or someone you know choose to install a safe in your house, be sure to place it somewhere the threat of damage is minimized in the event of a structural collapse. This safe was fireproof, but a large steel structural beam fell on it when the house collapsed and damaged the top compartment so as to break the seal on it. If it had been placed in a corner of a room or somewhere similar, the top compartment probably would have fared as well as the bottom which protected it's contents perfectly.
