1805 1/2 Cent....what a mess

I stumbled upon this as a buy it now during one of my late-night strolls through eBay. I will not share the name of the seller because they did make at least some, albeit half-hearted at best, attempt to identify this as a counterfeit. The price was negligible (<$30), and I felt it could potentially trick a novice collector, so I bought it to get it off eBay. I honestly forgot about it until it came in the mail the other day.

@Jack D. Young I figured you might be interested in this although it is not even remotely close to the same ballpark as your collection of 1806 C-1's.

 

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I'm ignorant so please let me know What's the tell for it being counterfeit?

 

They tried to fake the very valuable 1805 small 5 with stems variety. But it has the typical Chinese style digits. 1st pic is the fake. 2nd pic is an authentic PCGS F12 that is currently for sale for $8500!

 

It looks like it has a partial wire rim on the left side of the reverse. Since these early coins were struck in an “open collar,” that is not possible on a genuine early coin such as this.

A wire rim is formed when there is a small gap between the collar that surrounds the coin when is struck and the die. The medal flows into that spot which creates a small ridge above the surface of the coin.

 

Well, another based on the C-6 1804 spiked chin.

There are two varieties of small 5, stems reverse 1805’s and this doesn’t match either.

The reverse is an early die state C-6 with the die chip under the “A”; exclusive to the 1804.

I actually wrote an article on this “family” on Coin Week at https://coinweek.com/counterfeits/struck-counterfeit-coins-a-family-of-struck-fake-half-cents/

I would be interested in this one if you want to part with it @Coinsandmedals!

 

Why would you expect them to make any attempt to identify it as counterfeit if they are trying to scam people out of money?

also, by you buying it, you’ve allowed them to keep producing and selling them. Should have reported and moved on.

 

I found the listing; seller identified it as "Remake Not Original" and Country/ Region of Manufacture: "China".

Reporting it doesn't remove it from being sold later although I report a lot of bad listings for removal; I probably would have bought it myself for my teaching set.

 

The fake cost the seller $1.50 to buy. If he sold it for $25, it is a hefty profit. If he calls it a replica, then when the buyer complains, the seller can just point to the listing and say “you should have read carefully.”

However, since it is a counterfeit made after 1973 and does not have COPY stamped in it, then it was illegal to sell, even when identified as such.

 

It's also against eBay policy, which forbids even MARKED copies.

Marked copies were previously allowed, but eBay apparently decided it needed a larger and blunter hammer. The bigger hammer looks more impressive, and keeps more dust off the shelf beneath it.

In the past when I've purchased reported fakes, eBay has sometimes refunded me and let me keep the money, and other times required me to return the item. Either policy can be abused (return the item and it gets sold to someone unsuspecting; report a legit item as fake and keep it). I'm not sure what they should do.

 

I have actually messaged the seller in several cases that the coin when received was a counterfeit and they refunded the price and told me to just keep it; I assumed they knew it fake as well.

 

I'm also pretty sure that after they've provided a refund eBay will remove any negative or neutral feedback left for that transaction. As I understand it, that's the main reason we see so many fake sellers on eBay with little or no negative feedback.

 

As Jack says the fake reverse is based on 1804 C-6, but the fraction has beed extensively reworked. The 2 has been poorly reworked, they have done something to the zeros, can't really say what, but the fraction bar has been greatly lengthened.

 

Another avenue for reporting Counterfiets is the organization ACEF.
Doug Davis is a retired police Chief I met 35 plus years ago when I was a paramedic in the Arlington TX area. Doug is the LE liaison. He told me to send him anything and he would forward it to wherever it needed to go. He can be contacted at doug@acefonline.org. As I recall he was instrumental in setting up the national counterfeit information center with the ANA.

 

@Jack D. Young I admire your dedication to educating fellow collectors. If this example will help you do that, then, by all means, it is yours. If you send me your shipping address, I will try to get this in the mail in the next few days.

 

I have actually worked with both Doug and previously Beth Terry and continue to report significant counterfeits through him. He is working hard to help educate Law Enforcement on the counterfeit coin issue.

 

There are two sub-varieites of the 1805, Small 5, Stems half cent. By far the more common of the two (Although both are tough) is this one, C-3. This variety seems to almost always have a bulge on the right field of the obverse. This is an old picture, made from a slide transparency, from my half cent by die variety collector days.

 

Glad I don't collect those. I'da been out a ton of money by now.

 

I have thought about it a great deal, I would love to attend or take a class on counterfeit coins and recognizing them, unfortunately there are not any in the area, the programs I have found are all oos, out of state and hard for me to get to or a corespondance course that is financially out of reach for someone who lives on disability. Fortunately I have found a few things to read and study online, if someone knows of a good curriculum that I could get my hands on, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Terry there are a lot of articles on the subject on the internet- Coin Week publishes a large number on detection that you can easily access for starters.

Link to start at https://coinweek.com/category/counterfeits/

I continue to enjoy writing on the subject in that venue myself!

 

I have been building a virtual "black cabinet" of counterfiet coins on my computer over the last five years or so. When I see one on a site like this, I add it to my collection. Every now and them I present these "bad news pieces" to my local club in a presentation. I also post them here and elsewhere when appropriate.