Morgan Diagnostics

Are these (admittedly poor) photos useful enough to call out this Morgan as real or fake? If so, please inform me as to the relevant diagnostics. "It just doesn't look right" isn't useful information.

It weighs about 26g even, which is shy but nowhere near the typical counterfeit weight of 21-22g. One thing that gives me pause is how worn the rim is in relation to principal device wear.

Deliberately not posting reverse or MM so as not to unduly prejudice the jury. TIA.

 

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Looks real but very harshly cleaned to me.

Since you've stated you don't want to share the reverse or mintmark, I assume it is CC.

You should preform a ping test using this app. I have tested it with real and fake coins and am satisfied with the results.

 

Thanks, and agreed on all points — and thanks for the app! I will try it out.

ETA: passes ping test

 

Have you tried the magnet test? Good luck.

 

I'm not getting a warm and fuzzy about the date. The 8s look like they have breaks or segments and the five looks like it has a point to the tail. I would also weigh it, which you already did and do the ping test. I use a earth magnet slide and that is also a good test. Regards.

 

The problem with both "ping" and magnet tests is they only test the metal, which is fine if we are suspecting a contemporary counterfeit that only was intended to pass for a dollar. A skilled counterfeiter wishing to counterfeit a rare date for its collector value would be careful to use the correct weight and metal, even striking over a cheap genuine dollar, and both tests would say genuine.

 

I agree +1

 

I agree with @Neal on this one. Using a real, but common, silver dollar and stamping over it would be their best bet to get top dollar, if the fake dies were good enough.

 

Date @ 10x

 

It's not a rare date, and obviously the condition isn't great, so I'm not sure why anyone would go to too much trouble with this as the result.

OTOH we've seen a lot of things out of China which sort of defy logic. Sometimes it seems they'll copy things just for the fun of it.

ETA: whoa, I just looked up the values. I must have been thinking of the '83 or some other CC.

 

Can't remember seeing a shallower gradient in values w.r.t. grade. What's the story there?

 

I don't understand the motivation for not posting the reverse. There are known markers there for a common CC fake, for example.

 

I don't mind posting it, I just didn't want to prejudice the jury (as I said). I will take a shot of it, but would you mind letting me know two or three such markers before I do?

I'm now thinking it must be a fake, for the simple reason that I know all of the coins around here which are worth that kind of money, and I don't even know where this came from.

 

https://coinweek.com/counterfeits/an-epidemic-of-counterfeit-1881-cc-morgans-and-bad-pcgs-slabs/

 

Ah,so it could be an entirely wrong reverse! I forgot all about that. Though I try to read all the Jack Young posts, I seem to have a brain like a sieve sometimes. Sorry I didn't mean to be cagey. A learning experience for me.

 

Whenever someone asks if a coin is fake, I usually go straight to the reverse. The faker can use the same reverse for many dates, and it seems like they pay less attention to that side (and buyers also focus less on it). In this case I see a lot of missing bits of the letters and the right side of N in United is way shorter than the left. I don't know Morgans very well so perhaps @Jack D. Young will weigh in.

 

That coin looks quite fake to me. Sorry.

 

Not the common reverse used on many Chinese CC fakes; '85-CC only has two reverses and MM positions:

 

To @KBBPLL 's point here are some CC's posted in another forum from a "long time collection"; uses the common CC reverse for all dates:

 

Thanks again Jack. If I understand you correctly, the reverse on this coin isn't matching 1) the usual Chinese reverses or 2) either of the genuine variants. Is that right?

Is the MM the only marker worth looking at here?