An "Old" 1799 Bust Dollar Counterfeit

An astute Member of a counterfeit group I administer posted a couple of images of a recent Bay listing and asked what the "tell" was marking it as a counterfeit.



The answer he was looking for is the defect on the "R" of LIBERTY and later stated he thought it went back to the 1970's.

I sent a PM to another friend and well known counterfeit expert with the images and he responded as follows: " That one is famous...Repeatedly published by ANA and even in the text book I believe. The deficit in the back of the R in liberty is the diagnostic. One to one transfer dies".

As a Member of ANA I went to their website and started searching for information and downloaded a copy of the "Counterfeit Detection I" and this example shows starting page 93.



I made 2 separate pages of the images of the two examples documented by the ANA very similar to the attribution pages I make now for the latest fakes we have been documenting, and a comparison image of these and the eBay example's main attribution point.





The images show one of the edge as well, and I asked the seller of the current example for an edge view but have not had a response...

The current listing ended as a no sale, but we are on the look-out for a relist!

This is another of the opportunities to research and learn that I personally love- how I spend my spare time as available. And finding prior research on examples showing up currently is always a treat. I would highly recommend a review of both volumes of the ANA's Counterfeit Detection series!

Best,

Jack

 

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Another great article Jack.

 

@Jack D. Young Do you or anyone know why this happened with this coin ? I have a suspicion .

 

I care! Please elaborate.

 

well, when were these first counterfeited ?

 

Jack, your posts are by far the most educational to me. I been collecting since the 1970's and still like to believe that the world is as it was fifty years ago...... When a host coin is used to create counterfeit copies from. Are those subsequent counterfeits typically struck or cast?

 

When I started at ANACS in November of 1978 this was one of the high quality Die struck counterfeits we were seeing. Not sure where the counterfeiter was working from, but there were vague rumors of Switzerland.

All of the good counterfeits were die struck. We saw very few cast counterfeits back then. Too hard to hide the casting gate unless it was an uneven, plain edge such as on an ancient.

 

Used to see those all the time back when I first started. Have only seen one in the past five years or so. There are probably a lot of these out there in collections and type sets that will eventually come back out on the market. There arre several other counterfeits out there that used to be very common that aren't seen anymore.

 

A woman in one of my poker groups recently announced she was selling one of these. A man claimed to have found it in a house he was razing and offered her half of the proceeds for handling the sale. Another player and I became suspicious and the following week she brought it in.
I know nothing about the coin but it was unbelievably beautiful and I suspected a fake as did the other player. She claimed she had turned down an offer of $78,000 and they wanted 6 figures for it. I recommended a coin shop where she could get an honest idea of it’s worth.

the following week she reported it was indeed a fake and the owner was accusing her of trying to rip him off. I asked her if the coin came with fried rice and an egg roll. She wasn’t amused.

 

Very educational, thank you. Happy New Year

 

Thanks for the post.

 

Very educational post. Thanks very much.

 

Informative! Thank you. I think I have at least 4 of the counterfeit Bust Dollars. All of the dates are incorrect. Over 10 years ago, being drunk, DJing in a Mexican Bikini Bar may lead to purchasing items than shine under stage lighting!

 

Thanks, Jack. Some of these fakes are so good they are scary!

 

ive said it before and I will say it again..... I learn so much from you guys, thank you!

 

I messaged with the seller and he chose to relist it at: https://www.ebay.com/itm/TONED-AU-U...439543?hash=item2654060b77:g:ZgYAAOSwjsxf7mTV

 

its scary how good a fake that is

 

You tried.

 

And she suddenly ended the listing...



Seller's last response:

"I've had my experts look at the coin, but because you insist it may be counterfeit, I am going to not list the coin until I get it certified which may be a good idea anyway come to think of it. If anybody buys a coin from me at anytime and however long ago, and it turns out to not be authentic as determined by a grading service, then I'd of course return their money. I have an unconditional money back guarantee BTW on each and every coin. Have a great New Year and thanks for the suggestion.
Sherry"

 

She sounds like an honest dealer. Have you seen any of these already slabbed?