Is there a country where the GOVERNMENT itself was counterfeiting another country's coins?

I think there was a country in Eastern Europe that the Russian government - not individuals apart from the government - were intentionally faking. I am sure it was many decades ago, but I'm not sure.

Anyone know of CONFIRMED (not suspected) cases of Russia or some other country?

 

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I'm not sure about coins, but North Korea is a known counterfeiter of US currency.

 

The Germans counterfeited British currency in World War II but it was of limited effectiveness.

 

If you search wartime government sanctioned counterfeiting you will find that many countries employed this as a war strategy, primarily to demoralise the others population

 

Henry VIII debased his own coins. As the coins wore from circulation, copper start to appear on the coin's highest point, his nose. Some starting calling him "ol' coppernose" because of this. Not counterfeiting, but not exactly economically helpful, either.

 

If I remember correctly, the LMU (Latin Monetary Union) was brought down because of an overproduction of silver 5 franc pieces by certain unscrupulous countries (i.e. Papal States, Italy, etc.). Not quite the same thing, but close?

 

Russia did counterfeit Dutch ducats. Sweden counterfeited Russian 5 kopek aka the hockey pucks.

I reckon some government were involved in the production of gold plated platinum coins - the quality are really good. Spanish, French and English comes to mind.

 

Interestingly, these notes are designated by PMG: https://www.pmgnotes.com/news/article/7262/Operation-Bernhard-Counterfeiting-During-World-War-II/

There was a really good movie made about it as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Counterfeiters_(2007_film)

 

The north in the civil war made fake notes for the south as another one to add to the ones named.

There's very likely many instances of such acts that could take a while to come out for more modern times

 

I have read numerous examples of enemy countries counterfeiting paper currency and even postage stamps. I can’t think of an instance that I have read of where actual metal coins were counterfeited.

 

The Crusader states sometimes made copies of Islamic coins.

 

I've read many times of the USSR creating counterfeit mercury dimes in the 1930's, dated 1933.

 

I’ve heard this...but I always thought it was just a rumor. Has there ever been any real evidence or proof?

 

You beat me to it. It also did the Irish Republic and was working to do U.S. stuff that never took off.

 

though they were counterfeit, was the metallic content correct or did they plate lead coins with gold, for example?

 

Real gold Joe

 

No doubt about this one. During the American Revolution, British and Loyalist allies in the Crown occupied NYC environs combined to print huge quantities of Continental notes for the purpose of destabilizing the Rebel currency. It worked . Loyalists going out of the NYC area into Continental controlled regions were given as much counterfeited currency as they could carry. There was one way of detecting them under close inspection. The British notes were of higher quality, better rag paper, better ink and printing type. Still, so successful was this British authorized counterfeiting that these notes, and the ones issued by the Continental Congress, became essentially worthless, and Congress stopped issuing them in 1779. Collectors of Colonial currency are well aware of these notes and they are considered quite collectible in their own right. By the way, there was no attempt to counterfeit a Continental coinage as, except for a few pattern pieces, there was no Continental coinage and the Continental currency was denominated in Spanish milled dollars, anyway.

 

HAS ANYONE HEARD OF CHINA????

 

Please reread my post, and for God's sake, calm the hell down