Someone spent a good deal of money getting a custom-made Capital Plastics holder for this 1959 rotated-in-collar double-struck Lincoln cent. The trouble is, the coin is an altered error. Notice the flattening of the details and mushy designs on the second strike, a good sign it was hit with fake dies. For an altered coin, it is not even a good one really. Still, a pretty neat find I got for a very cheap price. It is important to study faked and altered coins to give you a good idea of what to look for. ~Joe Cronin These two below are much better altered coins that would fool even many experienced dealers...
Those are pretty obvious fakes for anyone familiar with genuine errors, or experienced in the field... but they are also pretty good fakes that would fool a large majority of people. That triple strike is especially neat. @JCro57 .... with all the fake errors you've posted, it might be really cool to mirror a series of posts that we've had recently on the US forums, where you post an error and ask us to guess if it is genuine or counterfeit. Don't tell us, and mix it up - post some real ones, posts some fakes. At the end, explain what identifies it as a fake, or what to look for in a genuine error piece. I think it would be a valuable learning experience for all. Maybe start with a couple of easy pieces like your first coin, and then progress to harder pieces.
no. friends of mine know i like to have altered and faked errors as well to study them. they either gave them to me or sold them cheap
I'm glad to see you chose that photo for your cover. I think it attacks the eye more than the other one. Thanks for posting the above coins. That triple strike would have fooled me for sure.