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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jimski, post: 2914524, member: 77373&quot;]1775 contemporary counterfeit British halfpenny</p><p><br /></p><p>British halfpennies and their counterfeits circulated in America and Britain.&nbsp; The counterfeits were minted in both locations also.&nbsp; This coin is unattributed so its location of manufacture or circulation is unknown.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]704429[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]704430[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Early on, I wondered how to verify that this coin was counterfeit, and not a worn regel halfpenny.&nbsp; It seemed to me that the shape of George III very well matched that of the photos of regal halfpennies.&nbsp; I found that a comparison of letter characters from a questioned coin to a regal will determine if the coin is regal or not.&nbsp; In this era, coin dies were punched by hand from engraved letter and design punches.&nbsp; The series of British halfpennies from 1770 to 1775 share the same letter punch designs. I verified that this coin is a counterfeit readily from the A and G letters.</p><p><br /></p><p>My suspicion that the shape of George III on this coin matches that of the regal was well founded.&nbsp; Later I would purchase a regal halfpenny, and overlay photos of the counterfeit and this regal, with the top coin being a semi-transparency.&nbsp; Overlapping the obverse designs, I found amazingly that the bust of George III in both coins were an exact match in major features and size.&nbsp; The counterfeiter must have used the below method of die sinking.</p><p><br /></p><p>From: <a href="http://coinhelp.net/civil-war-token-values/civil-war-token-die-sinkers/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://coinhelp.net/civil-war-token-values/civil-war-token-die-sinkers/" rel="nofollow">http://coinhelp.net/civil-war-token-values/civil-war-token-die-sinkers/</a></p><p><i>Die sinkers were around long before Civil War Tokens became popular. … </i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>Die sinking was the art form of taking a known coin, token or other metallic emblem, attaching it to a metal rod and driving the rod at high velocity into a piece of hot, soft metal.&nbsp; From there, the die sinker would use his engraving skills to enhance or alter the stamped features and cut away the excess. The result was a new die for the coin press.&nbsp; Then the metal was hardened by heating and cooling. Assuming it survived this process, it was used to mint coins in a coin press.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p>Beside the letters that identify this coin on a counterfeit, the details that the counterfeiter engraved into the design also clearly identify this coin as counterfeit.&nbsp; More on this in my next post.</p><p><br /></p><p>Next up is the 1774 regal halfpenny that I matched up with this counterfeit.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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