Going through some coin boxes (of coins purchased long ago and set aside for a windy day) and I've come across this Peruvian 20 Centavos coin from 1963. According to the original 2x2, it's KM 221.2c (Thin Flan). It weighs almost correctly (3.9g actual weight vs. 3.95g Numista weight) but man, are those details shoddy. The rims are terrible, the devices are weakly struck and/or are missing details/depth, the edges are irregularly struck, and there are numerous planchet flaws (huge die chip on the portrait cheek, HUGE die crack running across the entire obverse from I in REPUBLICA through the base of the portrait, die chip under the 0 of 20, what looks like a bubble under the V of CENTAVOS.) There are also a couple points where it looks like there is brass underneath some sort of plating - on the edge and a couple high points on the headdress on the obverse. So, my question is this - is this a counterfeit pretending to be a more valuable Cu-Ni version of this coin? (The normal coin is brass and should weigh 3.8g.) If I can supply some more pictures, I'm happy to do so. I think at the very least I should share a pic of the edge? Edge:
I will admit up front that I am ignorant of this coins history but could it have been struck over another similar sized coin or same coin of another date? The only reason this comes to mind is reading recently of 1800's Russian coins being made this way to save money. I'm sure other countries have done so in more recent times.
I've heard of that happening too, for example the Italian 1918-20 20 Centesimi (all overstruck on the 20 C. of the late 1800's. With those, though, there are usually elements of the understruck coin showing through, and the details of the overstruck coin are pretty fully struck. (At least my examples.) This coin...just looks pretty shoddy. Of course, when you look at the NGC images for the normal coin, that's what it looks like. So, I dunno...my gut would tell me it was more likely to be plated or counterfeit than overstruck. But I'm open to learning if someone knows more about it than I do.
If someone went to all the trouble to counterfeit an obscure modern Peruvian rarity, I would consider the forgery to be as cool a find as the original.
