Different opinions from two TPGs- what did they miss?

After some additional reflection, I'm hazarding a guess that these circumferential marks are lathe lines from when they turned the blank die. Why?

- The lines are raised above the field of the coin (but not the devices) which means they would be incuse on the die and thus not polished out when the semi-finished die was polished.

- They are too regular, wide, and deep to be die cracks or engraver marks.

- They appear to be concentric with the coin's rim, thus the result of tool cutting/dragging/gouging into the die blank when the die was rotating about its center.

- In my own machining work, this kind of gouge occurs when the tool is dull; or it doesn't have sufficient undercut of the cutting edge; or too big a cut is demanded for the tool's geometry; or the cutting bit doesn't have enough radial clearance; or the lathe's endplay adjustment of its spindle is not set correctly.

Whatever the reason, it doesn't change my belief that the two coins posted are counterfeits off the same counterfeit die.

 

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The strike is very weak. Look at the shields. There is a lot of missing die details.

 

Of course @Publius2 is right on-both examples are struck counterfeits. After they were exposed the TPGs were notified; NGC took note and requested my example be sent to them to measure and photograph which is why the raw image is credited to them. I had the coin then sent to a private lab where it scanned 90% sterling silver...

In an internet search of known bad sellers at the time another (raw) example was found:



The slight grading inconsistencies between TPGs and 2 examples are interesting sidebars to the actual question posed!

 

Of course you are correct! Reverse is actually 1875-S.

 

Pardon, but I have to say that this is not useful You asked "What did they miss". Please tell us what they missed that allowed you to identify them as counterfiet. I took the image of the coin and went photograph to photograph and turned down the transpanacy on them, comparing them back to back to samples in coinbook and registries and saw nothing significant. What, exactly, prooved them to be counterfiet. Thank you.

 

So what I have said for years -- that the TPGs do NOT spend enough time per coin and are willing to allow some bad grades and counterfeits slip through rather than spend an extra 30 seconds per coin.....is true.

 

Great idea. You can start and tell us why you posted pictures of a an 1872-S half?

 

You need to compare the pictures to known die marriages. Jack already told us the rev is from an 1875-S die, which confirms it’s a counterfeit.

@Jack D. Young - Is it reverse K?

 

Jack is absolutely right that you must know your published die varieties, and take the time to look them up while AUTHENTICATING a coin. Unfortunately some TPG GRADERS get caught up in the demands that coins be processed in 0.x seconds or whatever the standards are.

I started at ANACS in 1978 as an AUTHENTICATOR, and we had the luxury of taking as much time as we needed authenticating a coin. 1804 dollars were easy, as we just looked them up in the original Newman-Bressett book, but I spent a lot of time on the 1870-S Half Dime because it wasn't published anywhere.

All that said, sometimes new varieties are found. We had notes on die characteristic for 1928 Peace Dollars that were always either Die Pair 1, 2 or 3. Then one day die pair 4 came in. Absolutely genuine.

TD

 

What they missed was that the coins were counterfeits. This fake has been known for a few years now. I believe it was first publicized in the Gobrecht Journal. they have gotten into genuine slabs from all four of the top services. As mentioned it is an 1872 obv with an 1875 S reverse. In fact the obv is from if I remember an early stage 1872 Philadelphia obv and a late stage 1875 S rev

 

I doubt that PCGS ever saw these coins ... It's scary though cause it means the Chinese fakes are getting way better

 

No they saw them, the pcgs slabs in the images are real.

 

Have you read all posts? Two examples of 1872-S counterfeits in PCGS holders were posted, incl. cert numbers.

 

How does something like this happen ?

And I realize these fakes aren't of coins that they may see everyday like Saints or Morgans.

 

Including cert numbers that don't come up in PCGS - Which is why I said what I did. PCGS if the slabs are real, then they have the obligation to have marked them as counterfeit so that no one is duped by them moving forward.

 

Another China-Bomb X 2. CRAP!

 

well that is not going to help me at all. I don't have any magic knowledge when I shop and nothing said here would tip me off that these were counterfeit, other than, "Because we know".

 

Just trying to continue to get the word out about these in all forums!

My article in the Numismatist:



The main "attribution points for the common fakes are included in my 1-page attribution guide from my Coin Week article at: https://coinweek.com/counterfeits/c...-1872-s-half-dollar-1-page-attribution-guide/

 

The answer to your complaint is to read the literature. In the case of Liberty Seated Half Dollars, the current gold standard for die varieties - and thus one of your most valuable resources for determining if a coin is genuine - is Bill Bugert's series of books on this series. Bill has very generously made his books available on-line at no cost. They cover all the branch mints as well as Philadelphia up through 1852. He is still working on Philly post-1852 but I hope it is published before the end of the year.

I have posted the link to his books on CT several times but here it is again should you choose to avail yourself.

Online References (lsccweb.org)

 

Can't contribute here other than that my first hit on Heritage is one that claims to be "die pair unlisted". They still have WB-101 in the description but state "the centered date does not match the position of either WB-101 die pair". I'm not arguing that the subject coin isn't counterfeit, I just thought the HA listing was interesting. The other WB-101's I looked at do have the date a tiny bit further right but the same MM size & position. Maybe this was already written up at LSCC.

https://coins.ha.com/itm/seated-hal.../1316-3070.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515