I found this 1853 gold dollar the other day. Unfortunately there was this great ugly lump of solder on it where it was made into a brooch or something. A manufacturing jeweller has removed the solder for me but I was told that there were a number of forgeries of this coin made. Is this true and if so how can you tell the difference. Thanks in advance, Bruce
Nice find! Here's a thread I wrote on the subject, it may help you: http://www.cointalk.com/t56522/ You may also want to read this thread I made, its about alterations of coins (removing/adding mintmarks, etc)\ http://www.cointalk.com/t70426/ It is both important to know what a genuine coin looks like, and how both the counterfeit and genuine coins are made. A good book to learn this better would be Numismatic Forgery by Charles Larson This book is more of a 'cook book' on how counterfeits are made but it also goes over history of the minting process for genuine coins which is very useful. http://www.amazon.com/Numismatic-For.../dp/0974237124 Some other good books: http://koinpro.tripod.com/Books/DetC...dBookOffer.htm I bought this book recently directly from Ken Potter. It was a special where you order Strike it Rich with pocket change and get this counterfeit detection book free. This book has a brief introduction and then goes over many examples of counterfeit gold coins with pictures to give you an idea of what to look for. http://www.amazon.com/Official-Guide.../dp/0375720502 This book is made by PCGS and is EXCELLENT for both grading and understanding counterfeits by knowing what a genuine coin should look like. This book focuses on more what geniune coins look like so anything that isn't looks suspect. Where as the next book focuses on what counterfeits look like. I recommend getting both so you have 2 sides of the spectrum. http://www.whitmanbooks.com/Default....tID=0794820077 This book is by far my favorite book on counterfeit detection. It goes in depth and shows many examples. I can't recommend it enough! Re-read it! Finally, please read this thread that a fellow member and very knowledgeable member wrote, TheLostDutchMan, or Matt. He posted a thread which he found gold counterfeit coins and they are all very deceptive. I thought I was pretty good at detecting them until I saw that thread! http://www.cointalk.com/t71113-7/ Also, I don't know if you can but try and take a class on the subject. You will learn alot and get to examine counterfeit gold coins, lots of them. I took the Conservation, Grading and authentication class at the ANA's show in phoenix last year. The authentication part was only 1 day (8 hours) but I learned alot and best of all got to examine lots of counterfeit US Gold coins. It was a great learning experience. Even better, try and take the 2 week counterfeit detection course in colorado springs CO in the summer seminiar. I'm saving up money for it and hope to take it next year. Just imagine how much you will learn from that!
