Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Dug13, post: 6790976, member: 77843&quot;]From another post:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>“This coin is one of the most famous American counterfeits, a coin which appears several times a year in various places to plague collectors, and usually disappoints its owner after he spends time and effort only to learn that it is a counterfeit.</p><p><br /></p><p>This piece is not a cast or an electrotype, but is struck from dies. The lettering is thinner and not as well formed as on the originals.</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin falls into the interesting category of counterfeits in which the counterfeiters were not numismatists, and created coins which had no official counterparts.</p><p><br /></p><p>Two of the most prominent figures in the study of&nbsp; <a href="https://www.coincommunity.com/us_coin_facts/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.coincommunity.com/us_coin_facts/" rel="nofollow">United States coins</a> at that time were Don Taxay and Walter Breen. At the time of the&nbsp; <a href="https://www.coincommunity.com/go/link.asp?target=https://www.amazon.com/Coin-World-Weekly-News-Resource/dp/B00005QDWI/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.coincommunity.com/go/link.asp?target=https://www.amazon.com/Coin-World-Weekly-News-Resource/dp/B00005QDWI/" rel="nofollow">Coin World</a> study, they staffed the Institute of Numismatic Authenticators, a now forgotten commercial venture which was the pioneer in this field. Under the banner of the INA, Breen and Taxay prepared the following joint determination:</p><p><br /></p><p>The 1923-D dime is nothing more or less than a struck counterfeit, made from skillfully hand-cut dies at some unknown time and place, but thought to have been possibly of Soviet Russia origin like numerous other modern silver struck counterfeits.</p><p><br /></p><p>The variations found in the 1923-D dime which enable it to be positively identified as not from dies produced from Philadelphia Mint hubs follow.</p><p><br /></p><p>The two experts went on to detail the characteristics of a genuine&nbsp; <a href="https://www.coincommunity.com/us_dimes/mercury.asp" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.coincommunity.com/us_dimes/mercury.asp" rel="nofollow">Mercury dime</a> and specified how the corresponding features of the counterfeit 1923-D differed. They then amplified their comments:</p><p><br /></p><p>After 1916, dime dies were fully hubbed, any differences (other than placement and possible size of Mint marks) being microscopic or nearly so, and originating in clashing, minor shifting, or (as in the case of the overdate) unintentional use of two different hubs on the same working die.</p><p><br /></p><p>Differences in letter placement or shape can be excluded by knowledge of the minting processes then in use, and their presence on a suspected coin is confirmatory of its non-Mint origin.</p><p><br /></p><p>When this situation is combined with the presence on the coin of a date-mint mark combination not known to exist on genuine dimes, as in 1923-D and 1930-D, evidence of non- Mint (counterfeit) origin, already conclusive, becomes blatant.</p><p><br /></p><p>In their summation, Breen and Taxay addressed the background of these counterfeits:</p><p><br /></p><p>The 1923-D dimes have only been reported since World War II, and all are similarly worn... an extremely suspicious circumstance even for coins reported from circulation, as they have more than the normal amount of wear for dimes of the 1920&#039;s. [Author&#039;s comments: In fact, they were less worn than most genuine dimes of those years. They were also known as early as 1940, but this fact had been forgotten by 1963.]</p><p><br /></p><p>In conclusion, the combination of excellent die work and an egregious blunder (of a non-existent date-mint mark combination) points to a foreign origin, very likely the Soviet Union, which has a known record of counterfeiting U. S. silver coins during World War II.”[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in