Fake Quarter?

Quarter that is a dark grey metal,pewter perhaps as is soft and bendable...weighs same as real quarter at 6 grams and looks real...was told it was counterfeit...though find it hard to believe someone would go through trouble making a mold or die for a modern coin such as a quarter...any thoughts?

 

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If it is bendable it is most likely fake. But why fake a bicentennial quarter? Those dont even go for a dollar in MS. Curious.

 

If you drag it across a sheet of printer paper, does it leave a dark line?

 

My guess is that someone did it for the thrill of making it - it was not meant to fool anyone or be used in commerce.

 

Yes it does..that mean lead?

 

Who ever made it did good job...even has reed around edge of it...if not for color could pass with other change and someone wouldnt notice..

 

That's not specific enough to be able to determine correct weight. You'd have to weigh it to the hundredths place (0.00).

 

The only way you could know this is if you made it.

 

Will have to try and locate a scale....mine doesnt do that graduate..or tenths

 

Yeah I don't have one that does either. Maybe a postal scale at work?
If you do get a more precise weight, I have a feeling that it will be off by a bit. If it is indeed an off-metal replica.

 

I have a family story from 1917, and the newspaper articles from the time, coupled with stories from older relatives that are the fascinating stuff of lore. But alas I keep those stories with family only.

The only coins I have made are medieval looking pennies that I still have the dies for, I used molded lead bullets for the coin blanks. Sometime I might dig them out and post images of them. I had a whole medieval era mint going on out in my grandfather's metal shop when he wasn't around.

 

soft and bendable? hmmm... I'm trying to think of how many soft and bendable coins I have had in my life...

 

When I was younger there was games like Dungeons and Dragons, and War Hammer. These games sold lead figures that people would buy and paint to use with the games. I knew a kid who made molds of the figures with a lead mold set and would paint and sell them. It was illegal, but he made a lot of money at this. He could make a lead mold of anything. This could have been made as a slug to fool old style vending machines.

 

That makes the most sense. Pinball and arcades were very popular in the 70s/80s.

 

Postal scales won't do. They are only accurate to a tenth of an OZ or about 2.8 grams.

True but they will only cost you a couple of cents to make and if you can pass them they spend for 25 cents, call it an 1150% return on your investment. It's like any other low value item, as long as you can make a profit on them you can do very well if you can only make enough of them.

 

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s you could drill a hole in a quarter and pull it back out of the machine. I remember in the late 1970s we discovered if we took our shoes off and rubbed our feet a bunch of times on the carpet in the arcade you could get the game to start by just touching the quarter on the metal plate where you were supposed to insert the coin. But the games were not that fancy though, just Pong and some pinball games.

 

It may have been heated very high with a torch which would make it soft and discolor it.

 

Did you?

Bruce

 

Greatly appreciate all the replies...do have a question though...if someone made this,how would one go about making a mold...this in all respects looks like a real quarter...has reed around edge etc....just couldnt imagine the backyard guy going through all the work...

 

If you picked it up and it was still soft enough to bend, you would be very surprised and very sad.