Some fake classic US gold

These are some recent arrivals into my Black Cabinet. All are base metal Chinese fakes.

 

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Intentionally purchased counterfeits?

 

That 1925-D is just awful what were they thinking with the rims

 

That second incused Indian is disturbing. The other two are obvious. The third could have fooled me in that moment where my eyes gloss over and I have to own the coin I am seeing.... Disturbing.

 

So, "base metal" -- do they miss on weight, dimensions, or both?

 

It's pronounced "wims".

 

I do hope you're not buying these from China and adding another customer to their list. You probably didn't, but I just wanted to point out that when we stop buying these darn things, they'll stop making them. Supply/demand.

 

That's the problem with posting what's wrong, the next iteration from china may be corrected.....

 

I'm still hoping to hear back on size/weight. Unless they've gotten the hang of striking smaller coins over tungsten cores, I can't see how you could make a "base metal" fake that was the right size and weighed as much as a real example. (And I'm quite sure the fakers already know about specific gravity. )

 

1853 D: 2.2.g
1925 D: 1.9g
1910: 3.2g

So yeah, very off by over 50%

 

That's why I said "unless... tungsten cores".

As far as I know there's still no way to actually strike a design into tungsten, so the current state of the art is a thick gold layer around a tungsten core, and that doesn't seem to be practical for small denominations. I can imagine ways to start with a large tungsten blank, whittle it down to the likeness of a coin, then gold-plate it, but I don't think it would be anywhere close to practical, and the product probably wouldn't be too convincing, either.

 

All three are terrible fakes, but still good enough to fool a lot of people

 

Click on the on the full sized image, you will see alot more that is wrong with it.

Here is a genuine example. It's got so rim damage at 12 k on obverse, but it's genuine

 

Here is a genuine 1853 quarter eagle that you can compare with the fake shown above.

 

I wish it was true, but the majority aren't purchased by people like on our forum who just want to study them. Its people who want to sell them from many different countries. One of the Ch. dealers had a buyers list shown once ( since removed ) and the number of ebay dealers were in the 10s or 100s bought each. Now some of the Ch. dealers are doing sets~ want all of the Trade Dollars, high grade but some rare ones are AU and even different chop marks, Put them in an old empty book that your great grandpa put together and ebay, etsy here you come.