I said what I said, this dollar is so hideous i dont know if its been in a fire or if its a fake but gosh darn I almost spit out my coffee when I saw it and wanted to share. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1876-U-S-Trade-Silver-Dollar-90-silver/233827729185?hash=item367137ff21:g:0y4AAOSwS2xf3j07
Not a Trade dollar, surely. While it is entirely possible this is a real coin that was in a fire, the problem here is that fake Trade dollars are rampant (a favorite of the Chinese counterfeiters for a long time), and someone could have "crusted up" a counterfeit as a sort of smokescreen, and passed it off as a damaged original. Then again, it could actually be a fire-damaged original. I personally don't know. I personally wouldn't want to take a chance at finding out. So... pass, regardless.
I thought the same thing, lordmarcovan. It closed at $56 with four bids. I always say that I wish I could find stupid people to make a fortune off of but my conscience won't allow me.
@SensibleSal66 same lol @lordmarcovan I cant tell if its fake or damaged, its so bad. Either way at price it closed it incentives to damage fakes. Question is are fake sellers willing to go through the troubles.
I once saw a fake 1856 Flying Eagle cent- a replica which had been deliberately damaged to conceal and mostly remove the COPY stamp on the reverse. And that was just a legal replica. If somebody wanted to conceal an outright counterfeit, they could do the same thing: mess it up and damage it a bit, in the hopes that the damage would distract people from otherwise checking for signs of a fake.