Counterfeit / Altered Coin Of The Day/Week

I would have never found this thread if you hadn't bumped it up. Thanks for that. This is very educational for someone new to the hobby such as myself.

 

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1892 counterfeit $10 lib

everything looks good except the dentils between 8-9 o clock on the rev.

 

These came across the desk this morning

Not the usual cast counterfiets that I see . These were in the same collection & the owner was not aware that they were cast.

A neat Hard Times Token produced to look like the Jackson's currency experiment/My victory token. Cast from pot metal & copper coated.

&

A 1913 Barber Dime - nothing special about this one,fairly crude & quite light ,cast as well ot of pot metal. Probably didnt fool too many folks if actually spent.

 

German silver 1889-S Morgan

Another gem that came in today, 1889-S Morgan . I'm pretty sure it's made from german silver.

The 1st tip off besides the overall look is the weight. It comes 2 grams light around 25 grams. Enough to be noticed in hand. After that the die imperfections start to show up. Lumps & rust spots abound. The piece does appear to be a struck counterfiet ,just struck poorly .

 

When you say German silver, are you talking 50/50 with steel?

 

Great info, thanks. I need to go back and review the whole thread.

 

The type I was refering to is this - German silver - a silver-white alloy containing copper and zinc and nickel.

The coin is not attracted to a magnet , it does test as low grade silver so I am asssuming that it was mixed with copper or most likely nickel due to the color.

 

Know I'm quoting an ancient post but this is how I feel looking through this thread. Its extremely frustrating knowing that I would have been had by a number of the examples shown here. Sometimes even with the description of why I don't see it. Looks like I'm stuck buying slabs, especially when it comes to gold.

 

Great, now this is a useful thread. Lots of education can be gained from the samples you see on here. Thanks Bedford for bringing this to light.

 

Also looks like some mushiness in the olive leaves . Though I wish the pics were clearer as I imagine there are other differences if you compare it to an original of that date and MM . Are there any noticeable tooling marks you can see in hand ?

 

That gold would be one of those examples that would fool me. Of course if I were to obtain one like this, it would be slabbed.

 

+1

 

I still have yet to own my first 'American' counterfeit. I only have one that is a chinese coin.

 

Cast 1909 USA/Flipines Peso -

 

In the 1830s-1870s, due to the falling price of Platinum and increased supply, that PM (with a similar specific gravity) encouraged some Gold-coin counterfeiting. Those counterfeits were still partly Au, and the effort drilling out and refilling considerable. It was much more difficult than some might imagine.

Obviously, old Gold counterfeits (in Pt) were actually intended to pass as currency and not created 'to fool modern collectors.'

Here's a newspaper report from 1842:
http://noblemetals.blogspot.com/2010/07/usa-1842-counterfeit-coiner-caught.html

I believe this is the background to that 1855 $3 counterfeit shown on Page 1:
http://noblemetals.blogspot.com/2010/10/usa-1840-1860s-counterfeit-gold.html



When the French Govt evaluated their coinage in the 1890s, less than 0.001% were fakes.
http://noblemetals.blogspot.com/2010/10/uk-1876-counterfeit-gold-coins.html

 

That is interesting Juan, thanks.

 

lonegunlawyer-
LOL I'm rabidly obsessed with Platinum, sorry.

I'm especially fascinated by those fake Platinum Roubles that pop up rather often and may be contemporary fabrications from the 1830s. Michael Faraday and others denied this scenario, but the Russian government was utterly convinced British merchants were smuggling in Colombian metal in some wild arbitrage scheme. This has to be one of the wackiest counterfeits/conceits imaginable: free-market Platinum substituted for state monopoly Platinum, smuggled thousands of milles, from the jungle of South America to the Mint in St. Petersburg... and all back in 1830-40!

As Heraeus & Johnson & Matthey have recently spectro-analyzed their "vintage examples" and found higher-quality fakes, the Russian Finance Minister's paranoia might be justified.
So far as I can tell, no (other) scholar has elaborated this theory. I believe it's a fascinating subject that warrants a Phd.
http://noblemetals.blogspot.com/2010/05/russia-rouble-forgeries-may-reveal-mid.html

http://noblemetals.blogspot.com/2011/07/russia-1830.html

 

Doug ,it's been a while - I'd like to see a counterfiet from your collection .