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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lordmarcovan, post: 2945805, member: 10461&quot;]Indeed I do!&nbsp; That&#039;s a really amazing piece.&nbsp; Bust half host coin?&nbsp; Neat.&nbsp; Apparent Civil War connection?&nbsp; Wow!&nbsp; Original owner tracked down?&nbsp; Amazing!&nbsp; And apparently a <i>Confederate</i> soldier, too.&nbsp; Confederate stuff is always worth more.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, for all the reasons mentioned above, there&#039;s one small caveat here.&nbsp; Civil War badges on coins are heavily faked.&nbsp; Especially anything relating to the Confederacy.&nbsp; There&#039;s even a <a href="http://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n39a07.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n39a07.html" rel="nofollow">small booklet </a>on the subject.&nbsp; I have not read that, but I once heard a militaria collector surmise that maybe <i>half</i> of the Civil War artifacts in the collectors&#039; market are fake!&nbsp; Maybe that was hyperbole, but the point is, the CW memorabilia market is absolutely riddled with fake and fantasy material.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your coin having a link to a known, real soldier is encouraging, but that doesn&#039;t get us out of the woods yet.&nbsp; By way of example, I will mention that I was once consigned to sell an 1861 half dollar with the name &quot;A.L.P. Vairin&quot; engraved on it, and &quot;C.S.A.&quot;&nbsp; And Vairin was a real person.&nbsp; But the tag was a modern fantasy.&nbsp; Someone showed me other, identical badges with the exact same name!&nbsp; Fortunately this was pointed out in time for me to take the auction down.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also, creating something like this using vintage letter punches would be relatively easy for a faker to accomplish.</p><p><br /></p><p>So beware - you might want to contact <a href="http://www.exonumia.com/fakes.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.exonumia.com/fakes.htm" rel="nofollow">Rich Hartzog</a> or the author of that booklet, just to be sure.&nbsp; Proceed with caution.</p><p><br /></p><p>All that being said, I <i>personally</i> do not see any red flags on this piece here, and if it <i>did</i> happen to be a fake, it would&#039;ve fooled me.&nbsp; Looks pretty awesome to me.&nbsp; I haven&#039;t seen a Bust half host coin with any of these.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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