Featured A counterfeit Pillar Dollar, dated 1760

This counterfeit Pillar Dollar was offered at my local club's auction a year or so. The consigner gave it to me for educational purposes after I saw that it was not good. I am posting it here for the membership to see.



The issues are with the surfaces and the rim design, which is not sharp.

Here are photos of a genuine piece.



This one has been dipped, but it is in a SEGS holder.

 

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That 6 did look wonky before I saw the real one.
I assume the genuine is silver. What is the counterfeit composition?

 

Obviously the surfaces look bad, but this seems like the sort of thing someone might pass off as a shipwreck effect (aka seawater corroded) coin.

Can someone point out some easy identifiers on the coin that point to it being counterfeit?

 

Yes, I would like to know also

 

Your fake is cast. That's not salt water corrosion. Those are bubbles!

 

Based on the photo, I probably would have guessed it was damaged by salt water, too.

IIRC, the usual easy pickup on these, other than the general "look at the style" and "does it have soapy surfaces," is on the edge. You can see here what the edge of a genuine piece should look like. Here are some fakes.

Care to share with the class? I've seen a few shipwreck coins, but not enough to have this familiarity you're talking about.

 

The shipwreck effect does look a bit different, but I said it looked like something someone might try to pass off as shipwreck. I did not say that it looked the same. To someone unfamiliar, this poorly cast coin could be advertised as a desirable shipwreck coin and fool an unsuspecting buyer.

If you look at the Heritage archives, there are quite a few examples for easy comparison. Here's one with the classic shipwreck effect: https://coins.ha.com/itm/seated-hal...-25479.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

 

What am I looking for here?

 

"Shipwreck effect" is a fancy way of conning people out of money. What it really means is "corroded and cleaned." Shipwreck effect coins have corroded over time in seawater, and will have rough, porous surfaces. On the coin I linked, look on the obverse around the date and on the bottom drapery. Notice how rough that looks? And look at the date itself - it should be smooth and lustrous, but it looks "dimpled." The reverse is almost completely corroded, but you can easily see the roughness in the fields under the wing and around the mintmark. In hand, this coin would appear absolutely dreadful. This rough surface can resemble the porous "bubbly" look of the cast counterfeit in the OP.

 

Right. I guess I didn’t ask the right question: what am I looking for here to distinguish it from porous surfaces due to casting?

 

The edge helps tremendously, but there are tell-tale signs to tell between a real three-laurel wreath edge and counterfeits. Real ones had the edge put on BEFORE the coin was struck, while counterfeit coins usually had the edge struch in a collar, or rolled on after it was struck.

 

The biggest difference is the shipwreck effect is corroded into the surface of the coin, whereas the casting is more likely bubbles in the surface of the metal. If it appears like raised bubbles, as on this coin, it is probably cast.

With low quality pictures, the difference can be hard to see.

 

I have never been a fan of most shipwreck coins. I think that many of them are massively over priced. A certificate of authenticity and a woodern "casket" sould not justify paying a huge premium for a damaged coin.

The only pieces that are any good are the coins that were in the middle of pile where the seawater could not get to them. The most common examples are the gold coins recovered from the SS Central America.



Even those coins have their issues. When I was dealer another dealer consigned several of those coins to me to sell. When I looked at them with a strong glass, I saw that they were getting more than their share of copper spots, and that the they were getting worse.

Sure enough a few years later I saw some of the coins come on the market. They looked terrible. I am not saying that all of these coins will go bad. The one I posed above has been in its holder for a little less than 20 years. After a coin has been stable for 10 years, I'd say that it is going to be okay.

Of course, there was the infamous “supernova” $20 gold piece that had copper toning all over it. It was touted as something wonderful, and some bidders pushed the auction price up to over $300 k if memory serves. I thought that was insane. I would not have paid melt for that coin.

 

True for cast coins. Also look for signs of a seam, or removal of one.

The dangerous copies are the struck ones. Completely different animal.

 

Did they use a Castaing machine, or something similar?

If so, that was applied during the rimming process - before striking.

 

Nope. Read Gilboy. The edge will look like the filling in an Oreo. That is because the edge design was added before striking.
If you add the edgw after striking a broadstruck coin, there will be no consistency.

 

Exactly. Some mints had the two rimming dies pointing the same way, some opposite, and in different years.
Good helps in determining authenticity.