Both coins by the OP are obvious fakes. I want to gently (well, gently for me) tell the folks that suggested it could be real that they are doing others a disservice by providing incorrect information. Please do not comment again on a post about Morgans and whether they are real until you easily can tell the difference. That comes with time and learning. Also, I’m starting to lean towards what some folks here are doing and not explain exactly what is wrong. Doing so helps counterfeiters improve their wares. If you cannot identify these two as fakes, I recommend not purchasing any raw ones.
I saw several of the Sigma machines at the big weekend show here. I'm still deeply skeptical of them, and I wonder how long it'll be before someone starts producing a line of base-metal fakes tuned to read correctly on a Sigma. No XRF guns at the show, at least not that I saw. If PMs ever heat up again like 2011-2012, I expect that might change. As for surface penetration, I looked up some info about it when we had one of the earlier threads. IIRC they could penetrate silver enough to read a copper underlayer through thin silver plating, but gold plating (like HGE) was pretty much opaque. (You've got to get the initial beam into the metal, and then the lower-energy fluorescence has to make it back out to the detector.)
Yes, those coins were obvious and I didn't want to create a checklist of everything that I saw wrong. But it was also obvious how they made the dies. and the OP mentioned didn't want to buy/sell fakes so made me think the OP maybe was trying to flip coins. And if they are a seller then they need to be educated in what fakes look like and not deal in coins until they are sure IMHO.
I’ve worked on a few project over the years where we’ve tried to use resistivity measurements to identify internal flaws, but they lacked consistency. If I remember correctly (I’m too lazy to go back and read the product literature), the Sigma detector compares the resistivity against a standard and only gives a go/no go reading. The point I was trying to make earlier (and didn’t do a good job), is that there is no single test that will work all the time. Each has its limitations, so it’s important to understand those limitations when interpreting the data. Don’t blindly “trust the gun”. Determine if the person using the gun understands its strengths and limitations. BTW: One of the easiest methods to flush out Chinese Morgan Dollar fakes is to check the die marriage at VAM World. If you can’t match the coin to a known VAM, then that’s a big red flag. No fancy science behind that technique. Just need a good loupe and the patience to look at pictures.
Overall appearance looks suspicious to me...lettering and stars are off too...patina also looks off...it just don't look right to me...needs evaluation by a professional grader. I agree with it being a Chinese fake.
I'm pretty sure it's fake. Here are the indications I see: The most obvious problem I see is on the reverse. The gap between the neck and wing is wrong. The font used for the O mint mark is thinner than it should be. On the obverse the date is a little too close to the neck and the font is wrong. Look at the 5; it's clearly wrong. There are a lot smarter collectors on this site than me, but I would stay away from this coin.
I can see that. Do you care to add to your explanation. Cuz you just made 1000 coin talk member raise their eyebrows. Thank for the tip