Hey gang! I bought a very large British collection the other day. This piece was in the lot. It weighs 5.1 grams and does not test for silver. It looks like it's silvered copper. Is this a modern counterfeit? a contemporary counterfeit? or something else? My books not showing anything else. Thanks in advance!
Its likely to be a contemporary counterfeit intended to circulate as currency. Forgery and coining was a huge problem during George III's reign and I have seen quite a few silver-coated copper fake shillings from this period....
To be honest this was my first thought when I discovered it was copper. It's very well made on the other hand. Neat!
Whoever made this coin, if they made it before 1829, was taking their life in their hands to do this, because the penalty for coining in those days was death by hanging. (Not so long before this, in 1789 Catherine Murphy became the last person in England to be burned at the stake for this crime, which was the prescribed penalty for women accused of a crime equating to petty treason)...
Yes, certainly a contemporary plated counterfeit. Has anyone here seen the plated Victoria sovereigns? A thin layer of gold over a platinum core!
I've seen loads of gold plated sixpence passing as half sovereigns. Never one of the platinum fakes though. The thing is, they are probably more valuable than the average genuine one, due to their notoriety and higher intrinsic worth (which might also have affected their scarcity if they were melted down in huge numbers when platinum became more valuable).
