I talked to Roger about this coin over on the NGC forums. He's having trouble posting here, for some reason. Anyways, this was his reply:
When I looked at the photos, my first thought was that it looked like Liberty's hair was sinking into the field. I assumed @C-B-D would immediately pick up on that if true, though, so I figured it was just the photograph. Glad to hear that was the case.
Was there ever any mention as to the weight of the 1924 double eagle in question ? I'll admit, based on my collection of St. Gaudens, this coin, if counterfeit, would have fooled me.
Followed the entire thread, compared both coins to the fake from the article on about 25 areas and thought it was authentic. Very good post. Made me feel like I actually knew what I was doing, learning how to spot fakes. Learned a lot today. @ZoidMeister ...good job picking out those stars gafs...Spark
Back in the late 60's, I was buying $20's at the going price pf $40 each, so there was a potential profit of $5/coin. Five dollars was a not insignificant sum in 1960's Lebanon. In the 1979 Hunt Brothers silver run-up, gold went along for the ride and I was selling them a half dozen at a time to a major dealer at $600 each. One day he says two of that last bunch were fake; I offer to take them back. He says, too late, they are already in the melting pot, they were full weight and fineness so no problem. They were melting just about everything at that time. He had a box of miscellaneous silver for sale at spot. After a week, anything that didn't sell went off to the refiner. i saved a George Jensen serving spoon and a SF mint stamped 20 oz bar from the melting pot.
i saved a George Jensen serving spoon and a SF mint stamped 20 oz bar from the melting pot.[/QUOTE] Here is the bar. Actually was 22.41 oz.
I saw nothing obviously wrong with the OP pictures. I would have expected it to be a little bit redder in color, but it may have been dipped and/or the camera's color balance may have been off. Right now common $20's have a negligible premium over melt value, percentage wise. However, always remember that today is not all of time. I bought my first common date $20 in 1966, a BU 1900-S for $50. At that time melt was just under $34, so the premium over melt was just over $16, or 48%!!!!!!!!!! I was happy with it, even though $50 was a lot of money back then. I think I have identified that Beirut Mint. Someday I will write about it.
the weak strike on the hair on the left but the stars look strong, would put a warning flag up for me. As previously stated, the bumps on liberty would also be a red flag. I would agree that this looks to be counterfeit.