Bought something a little different... but still Seated

So a while back I was scrolling through Ebay listings and noticed a peculiar auction. Two Seated Half Dollars with a starting price of $25, and both looked quite beaten up and corroded... in a pattern that didn’t look consistent with silver. Looking closer, I realized the coins were not made of silver, but cast fairly crudely in some pot metal. Figured this was a chance to snag some contemporary counterfeits for a cheap price. I won both for the opening bid at $25 total.

I finally received these... well... “coins” in hand today. Here’s what they look like:




Yeah... these are definitely lighter than a silver half dollar, so most likely antimony was the metal used. Unfortunately the environment does not like antimony as much as many other coinage metals, and most of these antimony cast counterfeits didn’t stand the test of time. I believe the first coin was test-marked at more than one point along the edge. Perhaps the obverse digs were done by someone at one point to denote a “bad” coin.

On the first coin, the date looks to be either 1843 or 1845 - I will do more comparison with images of genuine pieces to be sure, but good chance it’s 1843. Unfortunately on the second coin the obverse is toasted and the date is gone. Maybe made during the Civil War as large numbers of circulating counterfeits were made at that time. I’ve heard an estimate than 1 in 3 coins in circulation were fake by the time of General Lee’s surrender. If I can get some more research done I will send images and a description to Gerry Fortin and the LSCC and see if I can get the first coin included in the LSCC web-book.

Either way these are my first contemporary counterfeits, and I am excited to own them. Hope you enjoyed my thread as I have two more packages on the way in the next week - one of them from a member here! Stay tuned.

 

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. Nahhh , just teasing. Can't wait!

 

Cool examples and interesting read. I would have pulled the trigger on those as well.
I have a similar example that was found in my grandparent's garden in upstate NY many years ago (1960's). It is actually the coin that lead me to a coin discussion site in 2011 while searching for information on it.

 

I would think they would be more likely to be tin or a tin alloy than antimony.