Post your best "Authenticity Challenged" Coin; I'll start with my 1872-S hd

1872-P obverse by die state, 1875-S reverse and edge (reed count) of 1876!

 

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What do you think it is Jack? Altered date, added MM, sandwiched from two coins, straight-up fake? What distinguishes the 1875-S reverse? I'm not familiar with these. I see that it's PCGS AU53 and sold on HA 06/10/16 for $705. https://coins.ha.com/itm/seated-hal.../1237-7427.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

 

The coin is a die struck counterfeit and not two sides put together. That's why the color of both sides matches.

 

I posted a thread on this "authenticity challenged" 1901-S 25c a while back.
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/1901-s-25c-another-quiz.384029/
Reverse Type II is unknown past 1900. PCGS VG08.

 

Thanks, I was not aware that the LSCC experts had done a reed count. The mint that struck many US coins can be identified by their reed count alone!

 

Interesting question that takes me down "Memory Lane." In 1972 I got the novel idea of counting the edge reeds on $5 Indians to see if I could detect counterfeits that way. No Dice.** But it turned out that by regularly counting reeds on most reeded coins (we rarely received more than one coin at a time - perhaps 40 a week so we had plenty of time!) it turned out to be helpful for many key coins and we discovered that the Mints often used different collars between them and even at the same Mint! I believe either Van Allen/Mallis or Wiley/Bugert were the first to include reed counts in their books.

There are several methods used to count them. I believe photographing the coin while it is sitting in a flashlight reflector is the one most folks see talked about. I'm done counting before they even get their "rig" and coin ready.

All I do is pop the coin's edge under the scope. Rotate it until I see a distinctive mark on a read and start counting by slowly rotating the coin. Most larger coins have counts way over 140.

** Very often the edges on counterfeit coins do not look as they do on a genuine example.

 

Sorry I missed this! What a great post and one I will be digging into some more- thanks @KBBPLL !

 

I was told that this spent many years in someone's collection as a real one. It's an electrotype.

 

See PM. I intend to do an article on it for BCCS.

 

After many years of record keeping, I've pinned down enough corroboration. Every-so-often I've become distracted (usually at #100 + and need to start over ). On occasion, when my records don't match up or if I think I made an error on a count, I'll count again in the opposite direction. 99% of the time, I get it right the first time. I guess a beginner could mark every 10 or 20 reeds with a pen ON A COIN THEY OWN.

 

Very cool! Do you know where it is currently; if so you can message me?

 

I've edited images of coins with ticks at every 10 to count denticles. Seems like for reed counts you'd want to use the flashlight reflector method or similar, take an image of it, and add ticks, so it's repeatable and you have a record of it.

 

Seems like most caught on to this post. Deceptive but nice, thanks.

 

???
I am hoping more will post theirs!

 

I have my doubts they were transfer dies in the traditional sense. Probably created from counterfeit dies manufactured with a high end CNC milling process using 3D scans of actual coins.

 

I agree @justafarmer ; in most cases with this group of counterfeits we have identified the source coins and the same group who purchased them...