Authentic or Counterfeit? Gold Coins

I received a Liberty Head $5 and a $10 from a customer, and I never deal with gold so I need help with authenticating them. I am hoping with large pictures some of you more experienced with gold coins can tell one way or another.

I'll be glad to answer any questions about details that are confusing in the pictures, such as if certain marks are incused or raised, etc.

Thanks in advance for your help!
Tom

(The reverse of the 1900 $5 is not uploading right now. Also note that the 1901 $10 reverse is pictured before the obverse.)






(I added this $5 reverse picture on March 24 10:20 AM EST)

 

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We need Matt....

 

Man those are difficult from those pictures. I see things I like and don't like on both pieces.

Do you think that your picture shows about the correct luster these coins have in hand??

 

GDJMSP, I just realized how stupidly confusing my original post was with the wrong numbers being used, so I edited it to read correctly. (I actually have a $5 and a $10, the $5 reverse not yet pictured)

 

Matt,

I'd say the luster is well represented in the pictures compared to in-hand under a good light. (I used halogen.) The 1900 $5 piece has full satin luster, very natural looking. The 1901 $10 has so many marks littering the fields and high points that the luster only shows through in the more protected areas. I can't even get a read of the surface type, whether the luster was satin or more proof-like.

I have not weighed the coins, because I don't have a scale to do so. I never deal with gold, and have had no need for any measuring devices until now.

 

I see a copper spot on the 1900 ($10???). This is usually a good sign of the piece being original. Doug would you agree that you hardly ever see copper spots on counterfeits? I would say that in my opinion that the 1900 is authentic.

 

And I agree with your comments there. In hand It would be a definite one way or the other. I gave the surface the benefit of the doubt. I see what I think is the little ridge just slightly interior of the denticles which to me would also indicate worn dies... and therefore the surface conditions... that was my train of thought regarding the surface, wrong or right.

I don't see any clear tool marks. But its hard to see with all of those hits.

 

On the first, several of the marks appear to be undertype of a smaller denomination, possibly $2.50. Notice the top of a portrait in the field in front of the hairline down to the bottom near the nose. DOLLAR between hair and stars at top and what looks like a period in front of the D which doesn't match up with this design.

Now the next Reverse shows hints of a smaller eagle about the head of the eagle. I believe this is the reverse of a different coin, if I understand right.

I'm suddenly seeing undertype everywhere I look. I wouldn't take my word for it unless others also see it.

 

I better find a way to upload the reverse of the 1900 $5 to avoid confusion and also let that coin be better evaluated. It just keeps freezing with tinypic. I'll look for a different host that supports large files.

 

Try Photobucket. Free accounts.

 

I think they have been struck on planchets which were previously struck leaving feint impressions of the previous strike. Most of the time, it's from the same dies, but the image I see (or think I see) on the 1900 would be a different die and denomination (smaller) of the same design. I speculated initially at a $2.50 thinking I was looking at the $10, but it could also be the $1 on the $5. It is complicated by what looks to be a strike from the nose area from the same die in the same area.

I really wish I had image overlay capability to show what I'm seeing.

I now also see the impression of the T in LIBERTY and traces of the hair in the field to the right of the junction of the hair and neck of the Lady. This strike appears to be of the same die. The size and shape match the final strike.

 

These are examples of using previously minted coins as planchets:

http://www.icollector.com/A-display-of-5-Gallery-Mint-products-reproductions-to_i8599228

http://www.cointalk.com/t98665/

I believe there are far more examples of restriking a planchet with the same dies several times due to a poor initial strike and misaligning the planchet as they tried to repeat the strikes to raise detail. I believe multiple striking was required to bring out detail for much of the 18th and 19th century and into the 20th century.

Unless the final strike is off center, the undertyping is easily confused with bag marks or friction marks since the earlier strikes are mostly obliterated in the subsequent striking. It might also be confused with clashing except that it would have a normal orientation rather than the reversed and flipped orientation of clashes. It might also be confused with die breaks except that they change from planchet to planchet rather than progress from coin to coin like the die breaks.

Anyway, I'm VERY early in the learning curve on this and am seeking to find as much information on this as possible. Going down wrong trails on this is not only possible, but probable.

 

Marshall

I see the things you are referring to and I see convenient bag marks and a little die clashing in the tiara. The shapes of the "Face" are not correct. What we are saying that it is (almost) impossible to strike a smaller coin on a larger planchet. The machinery won't allow it. The first batch you posted was done intentionally by the minting company. I was at a coin show in Orlando a few years ago and the company who made the pieces you show was there. I got to talking to Mike Ellis and in our conversation he made me several errors on the FUN show tokens right there in front of me as a souvenir. My point is that these were also made intentionally probably by the same guy.

The second piece you show was mine and it was struck on a regular sized planchet that just happened to be cut down from a larger token. By the time that the coin shown was made this practice was long gone.

 

Here is the reverse of the 1900 $5 piece. I increased the jpeg compression to make it work with a different host, so it may appear a bit fuzzier than the others. The size should be just as big though.

I will also insert it into the original post for convenience.



Krispy, thanks for the photobucket tip. I am not into their "optimizing" (resizing) of images and the whole account thing when it comes to quick uploads for one time usage. Mainly it's the resizing and compression that gets on my nerves. I like a host that doesn't secretly change the binary code of my file for their benefit.

Tom

 

I understand what you mean although Photobucket works very well for forums and as an alternative to how images hosted on CT resize your file, Photobucket is a relief. I think Flickr is the next best option for some, they too have free accounts but limit storage space by number of files until you buy into a membership.

 

My priority with the image files was that for attribution purposes I wanted people to be able to view pictures as large and clear as they came off my camera. Those are 5 MB to 9 MB each and about 2300 x 2300 resolution

I just checked, and it looks like tinypic does compress the files, because the original file size of the 1900 obverse was 5.5 MB while the one displayed in this thread is 3.2 MB. It went from 2300x2300 to 1600x1600 resolution as well. That annoys me, but at least they are still big. And tinypic doesn't have a 1 or 2 MB limit.

Maybe photobucket is more flexible than I thought, but I just got fed up with them for big images a couple years ago and haven't looked back.