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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;jgenn, post: 8326762, member: 78525&quot;]There are definitive observable or measurable details that we can use to positively spot a forgery.&nbsp; Other issues can establish that a coin just can&#039;t be authenticated (extensive environmental damage or deliberate defacement, for example).&nbsp; The best we can do to authenticate a coin is to determine that it does not have any anomalous or suspicious details.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your coin does not show evidence that it was edged with a parallel edging and upsetting mill (as all genuine Spanish colonial coins were). That is an observable detail that we can use to question the authenticity of your coin but due to the good quality of the edge details we should call this coin a forgery.&nbsp; Your edge photos are quite excellent by the way. In addition to the missing overlap, there is an anomalous wobble in the section shown by the third edge photo. Many circles have varying thicknesses and the rectangles have varying widths.&nbsp; And for the record, forgeries were made using parallel edging mills so that is not a definitive detail of an authentic issue, just one of many details that need to be checked.</p><p><br /></p><p>On the other hand, very few dealers would reject this coin as inauthentic because they have been buying and selling coins with just these types of anomalous details for their entire careers.&nbsp; Bob Gurney (swamperbob) has made a career of studying how these coins were originally produced and how forgeries were made and applied the necessary rigor to his observations and measurements to provide the rest of us the guidelines that we can use to try to authenticate these for ourselves.&nbsp; Buy his book and read his posts at CCF.</p><p><br /></p><p>Many collectors (and dealers) that choose to believe that coins like these, with&nbsp; correct obverse and reverse details and weight, must be authentic just don&#039;t understand the strong financial incentive that was created for producing accurate forgeries (with very close or equal silver content) for trade with China in the 1800&#039;s and early 1900&#039;s.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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