I have written a few posts in this forum as well as a couple of articles published in Coin Week about counterfeit half cent "families" that can be found in many selling venues currently. The 1st is the family based on the 1804 C-6 half cent, which is a "spiked chin" variety and collected by many for the diverse reverse die states due to progressive breaks. The 1st image here is of one counterfeit example that had been listed for sale in one of the popular selling venues: As I reviewed previously these can be found with a range of dates from 1800 to at least 1807 with the common '04 C-6 reverse with the earlier die state with crack midway under the fraction denominator to "U", and "dot" under the 1st "A" of AMERICA. Both top TPGs have had examples submitted for grading including this 1806 from the family: The 2nd "family" grouping is based on the classic head obverse and the 1826 C-1 reverse. These also can be found with a wide variety of dates including 1809 through 1836. The following image of my collection "1836" showing the common '26 C-1 reverse with an odd series of "bumps": All of these family members have the common reverse with "bumps", pretty easy to attribute once you look for them... Until yesterday! Reviewing listings by a new seller from the Ukraine on the Bay I casually went through the same old- same old in preparation of reporting the listings when I turned the listed 1836 half cent over and was surprised to see the wrong reverse for these known counterfeits; instead of the '26 C-1 reverse it has the '04 C-6 reverse: Kind of shakes things up with the counterfeiters switching the reverses and starting a possible new "family"... My Coin Week articles on the 1st 2 families can be found at: https://coinweek.com/counterfeits/struck-counterfeit-coins-a-family-of-struck-fake-half-cents/ https://coinweek.com/counterfeits/s...nother-all-in-the-family-half-cent-1835-1826/ Best, Jack.
Back in the mid 2000's it was possible to buy a full date set of fake half cents all with the same reverse die, but I don't remember which rev it was. The practice of using the same undated rev die for counterfeits of multiple dates has long been a common practice among counterfeiters. But it used to be back in the 70's to 90's it was usually seen on fake gold coins.
