Without magnification, the last digit of the 1888 doesn't look right to me. I don't know about the '85 because I can't enlarge it, either. ~ Chris
Yes, the third "8" is different from the previous two. It makes sense. You make a very good matrix die and leave the last digit off. Then then you add one to the working dies. As for the 1885-P, the date looks better but the dentiles don't appear to be the same length all the way around. I would say both are bad, and both are scary. The Chinese are getting better ... sadly.
I don't know. However, here is a comparison photo with a known real one from 1888- Philly. Yours is much farther away from the dentils. And for a coin that is in such good shape, the 8's are all wonky. It's a common date. I didn't look at the 1885.
Would have been interesting for this thread to have been a GTG to see if anyone would have identified it as fake. The title clouded our minds!
Agreed with previous posters; the discrepancy between the luster shown sand the weakness of the feathers on the eagle's breast caught my eye.
Everytime I see a new thread titled "real or fake" I get my hopes up that it is about implants and not Daniel Carr.
It's real, but I'm not crazy about the surfaces. The funny looking 8 at the end is actually the way it tends to look. Leroy Van Allen actually called a few of these "inverted 8" varieties, but the 1888 date punch just looks that way, with the top of the last 8 being a little thick. The date is punched high and almost near, so it looks like VAM 9 is a distinct possibility, but VAMs 2, 12, and 44 also have high dates.
What's the weight? If it's correct (I bet it's not), then testing for silver without damaging the coin would prove it either way. Since a faker would not use real 90% silver to make this common date.
