Contemporary Counterfeits

I bought this as an original piece a while ago. Recently put it up on eBay and someone said it was a fake. I never liked the dark spots but looking inside the hole looks like silver all the way through. Now I think it’s a Sheffield Plate contemporary counterfeit which is much more interesting than a holed original piece.

Hoping @Colonialjohn or anyone else with more experience than me can give an informed opinion.

Thanks
Jim

 

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What do those go for, the counterfeit micro o?

 

There is a guy on eBay who will take $45 for his 1944 Henning without the looped R

 

Can you post photos of your henning?

 

The lettering looks a bit crude for a genuine coin.

 

I've seen a few in older slabs go on up to $400 or more depending on grade. Depends if it is 1896, 1900, or 1902. Seems that the 1896 is more common than the other two. There is an 1896 micro O VAM 4 in an old ANACS slab on ebay right now for $250. There is a 1902 mircro O raw, for $350 as well.

 

My recent (not contemporary) struck counterfeit; these are getting better...

This one takes some knowledge of the Liberty Seated half series to pick out.

 

Yes, the 1872 S half-dollar small S mintmark that wasn't used until 1875.

 

Resurrection time!

Been a long dry spell for me regarding contemporary counterfeits. Finally added a Morgan! It's not in TPG plastic but I couldn't ignore this one for the price. Won it on an eBay auction for..... $57. Pretty good grade too.

 

could some tell me if this is a contemporary counterfeit or not. Others on here have informed me that its a fake but someone mentioned something about a contemporary and here iam lol. Any advice would be awesome. Thank you guys

 

Somewhere I have a counterfeit Buffalo nickel, so I know that it "paid" for some folks to mint/cast their own small denomination coins. A hundred years earlier a dime was worth way more than a nickel was in the 1930s. I don't recall seeing such worn counterfeits in posts before, so perhaps this was a contemporary counterfeit. Just a VERY uneducated guess on my part.

Steve

 

Does not appear to be a fake. It is an example of the JR-4 die marriage for the year.

Not my coin, but here is an example of one in better condition.

 

I have been doing more research on these 1821 8R Zacatecas. INSIDER one of the more perplexing scenarios in this matter is we see at least 1/4 OF ALL 1821 Zacatecas 8R's in AU or higher (slabbed or not slabbed) with this discoloration or non-homogeneous surfaces. Many are considered IMPROPERLY CLEANED since a TPG observing a non-homogeneous surface can only assume its been cleaned. I came across a recent article "The Environmental History of Silver in New Spain between 16th-19thC by the author Quintero from McGill University (i.e., his PhD thesis). Its complex but I will try to make it simple to understand if I am correct in my assumptions on this issue. Not all silver bearing ores in Zacatecas were silver extracted with mercury. We had light colored ores (i.e., AgCL based ores) and dark colored ores (AgS or sulfur bearing ores). The darker ores were smelted requiring sometimes litharge (i.e, Pb) and many times just charcoal since mercury did not work very well AT ALL in extracting sulfur (S) from the darker ores. My guess for 1821 this year of INDEPENDENCE the assayers may have decided to amalgamate all the ores, there may have been a lack of salt (i.e., normally brought in great distances from the coast) or copper sulfate, charcoal, or other ingredients which may not have been available in 1821 creating a poorly colored silver finish alloy? Remember there are MANY DISCOLORED NON-HOMOGENEOUS looking 1821's. My theory which can be proven is by cutting a piece in half and examining the surface to core by SEM/EDS (not XRF analysis) and then looking at the Ag compounds found in the alloy such as AgS, AgCL and Hg2CL2. I suspect the sulfur levels or high concentrations of AgS being the root cause of these issues due to not smelting the AgS ores (i.e., darker ores) and simply amalgamating the darker and lighter ores together. THe other possibility is Not having enough salt (NaCL) may also be a root cause as to properly amalgamate a silver ore it must be in the form of AgCL and NOT AgS. The salt with smelting in a furnace transforms AgS to AgCL which then the Hg binds to the CL forming mercuric chloride (Hg2CL2). Its complicated to the newbie to understand all the ingredients of the Patio Amalgamation process and the other treatment operation at these Hacienda Mints being smelting of the sulfur bearing ores. XRF will not help too much since high S readings could be argued as environmentally (i.e., atmospheric exposure) derived as with high CL levels. Actually I will be presenting these findings to a group of collectors shortly. SEM/EDS allows compounds to be quantified unlike XRF which just provides singular elements in a quantitative manner. It would be virtually verified if we see darker areas (AgS) right to the core of the coin. Any further inquires are welcome in this matter ... JPL

 

Paragraphs make nice chunks of information digestible rather that trying to gulp everything down in one bite.

 

No B/S/T comments allowed in the normal threads. Please read the rules,

 

Resurrection of this old thread.
my recent collecting has been directed towards ccc's especially the 1920s 1930s Morgan copies.
I have all the micro o's except for the 1901.
if anyone has one of these rare gems I'd love to see it, got to upgrade that 1902.
most I've found in the wild.
interesting vam 67 in the Blanchard holder.
@Colonialjohn I dug out my 1821 zg 8 reales, unfortunately it's not au and has even surfaces. best wishes all,
let me see some more copies

 

@H8_modern ,
Nice ccc piece of 8, the varied legend
Lettering is a pretty obvious pup.
@Evan8 , that is a really nice micro-o,
And you got a Sweet deal.
Here's a fake Mexican 8 reales from the bay, all kinds of doubling and clashing, overlapping edge design, not to mention the chops, tests as silver. I have several full size 8 reales buttons that match nicely with the regals, faking the coins was big business for the china trade,
So much so that it became fashionable to use them as buttons.

 

Is the overlapping edge design the space under the '178?"




What do you see wrong with this edge? Isn't some overlap OK?