Fugio Cent...real or fake?

Here are a couple of genuine Fugio Cents.

This coin was part of large hoard of Mint State pieces that held by The Bank of New York. The bank had this hoard dating back to the 19th century. Over the years they gave them out of favored customers. Finally, circa 1948, specialists were able to example the remaining part of the hoard which numbered something like 1,100 pieces. Those numismatists attributed the coins by die variety.

These coins were made from had made dies, and each die is a little different although the design is generally the same. This piece was made from one of those known die pairs, and therefore the assumption is this was in the Bank of New York hoard.



Here is another piece, which specialist call the "club rays" variety. The "club rays" are around the sun on the obverse. This was made from a die that was repaired and re-worked. This piece is scarcer than the previous variety.



These coins were made on a drop press. The "sun dial" side was probably the anvil or lower die and the "rings" side was the upper die. The upper die was mounted in a grip with a heavy weight on it. It is raised and then dropped on a coin blank or "planchet" to strike the piece.

If you would like to see a drop press in action, there is one at the Islands of Adventure theme park at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. It is in the Atlantis area which next to the Harry Potter section of the park.

 

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Welcome to CT, @Bridgett Smith. I'm a bit confused, hope you can help me out: is there a Fugio cent in your father's possession and you are looking for photos of authentic examples to compare with (as our kind @johnmilton has done so well)?

Steve

 

the originals all vary some and Fugio's have at least 55 varieties from the 24 obverse dies and 33 reverse dies. this is a link to the Notre Dame website for Department of Special collections of Republic and State coppers, and
FEDERAL CONTRACT COPPERS 1787 for some known examples with pictures.
There's also the New Haven Restrikes, but this isn't it either.

https://coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinText/Fugio.1.html

Anyways, very likely any one you will come across are fakes, there's more reproductions, copies, fakes than there are real coins by orders of magnitude.
like 99.9999% of the time it's going to be a fake.

 

What you have is a copy of a copy. In the mid 19th cenury, I believe it was Willis Betts, made a set of dies to reproduced the Fugio Cents. The most obvious difference is that the rings on the reverse are thinner than they are on the genuine piece. Compare yours with the pieces I posted earlier.

These pieces are known as "the New Haven Restrikes." They are not restrikes because they were not made from the original dies. I think that your piece is a copy of a New Haven Restrike. It has a modern, cast look to it. The first New Haven Restrikes are collectors' items although they don't interest me.

 

A high-quality replica. Probably made post-WW2, but I could not prove it.

 

Is this your coin?