I ordered some fake morgans from China so I could learn the difference. At first glance they look great. It is not magnetic. On the scale they are 2g lite. Below is a list of things I noticed. 1. The point of the neck extends almost to the edge which is a good bit different than a real morgan. 2. The date is crooked. It's an 1888 and the 1 is closer to the edge than the last 8. 3. The edge of the coin where it's reeded was very lightly stamped. 4. The coin is thicker than other morgans. 5. When tossing it on a table it seems to have a higher ring and bounce more than a real morgan. This wasn't very obvious to me, but after several times I was able to tell the difference. I know pics would go along ways, but at least here are a few things to look for.
You might want to consider deleting #2. There are tens of thousands of Morgans with a slanted date because they were punched by hand. Chris
When I did the rare earth magnet test by sliding it at 45* angle it slid like it was on plastic. Thanks for the info about the date.
Don't want to appear uninformed, but WHAT rare earth magnet test? I unnerstand that many fake 'silver' items are magnetic (contain iron/steel) to some extent; and I'm familiar with the intense properties of those magnets, all out of proportion to their size...but the '45* angle part is new to me. Explain, please? Thanks!
I think gubni is referring to this: [video=youtube;eRxfwPIo8XM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRxfwPIo8XM[/video]
GOOD! I don't see how the genuine Morgan accounts for the gradual descent down the inclined face while a fake with some ferrous content allows zip-fast movement, unless hysteresis has something to do with it. Silver & copper are very good conductors of electricity (as iron is not so good) so the speed difference would be a resultant of the way each alloy interacted with the rare earth magnet; and the silver/copper of the genuine creates a stronger hysteresis current (hence more attraction) than the fakes. My electrical/magnetic training is 50 years old, and it didn't go into these particular aspects of alloys...so all this is conjecture. I have a feeling there's something subtle but important in this angled magnetic test, though...and I like it. Thanks!
