Does anyone know how to determine fake Reichspfennig? Both the kind from the Weimar Republic and the bronze and zinc types of the Third Reich. Some of the bronze ones just look too perfect to me. Someone said they are heavily cleaned. What do I need to look for and how common are fakes? What are your thoughts on the ones below?
You might want to post this thread in the "World coins" forum...you'll get more of the people who collect these to see it. Not everyone looks at "coin chat". Welcome to CT!
Does anyone know how to determine fake Reichspfennig? Both the kind from the Weimar Republic and the bronze and zinc types of the Third Reich. Some of the bronze ones just look too perfect to me. Someone said they are heavily cleaned. What do I need to look for and how common are fakes? What are your thoughts on the ones below?
These all look good to me. I've seen Reichspfennigs that were gold-plated but your coins look original. Possible cleanings on the 1942 and 1938 10 and 1938 1 Reichspfennig (I don't see heavily cleaned) but they still look acceptable to me. Look for hairlines that show cleaning. The 1936 2 Reichspfennig has nice, original eye appeal. Overall nice collection.
Fakes are not common because it isn't a very valuable coin. The 1938-A looks like a nice coin that may have been dipped.
I've never heard of fake reichspfennigs. I strongly doubt that's of any concern at all. Nor do I see anything that looks harshly cleaned there. As you may have known, the difference in color between your brownish and yellowish 1938-A coins is because the 1- is struck in bronze while the 10- is struck in aluminum-bronze. Everything I see there looks normal to me, including the 1938-A reichspfennig. It does not look dipped to me but rather looks Uncirculated. Maybe it was dipped and maybe it wasn't. But it looks OK to me.
If the bronze ones had been "heavily cleaned", they'd have the same unnaturally orange look a cleaned US cent gets.
If the coins look too “perfect” they were likely cleaned. E.g. your 1938-A Pfennig sure looks like it was. Usually the color of the coin already tells you if the surfaces are original or not.
The 38-A 1pf looks to be cleaned/polished to me, but that could just be the lighting in the picture. I think the 24-J 10pf is cleaned as well. Everything else looks fine at quick glance.
View attachment 982058 In the first years of the Third Reich, the Ministry of Finance and other departments of the Reich and the NSDAP received an avalanche of accusations that the artist who had been responsible for the coins of 5 and 10 pfennigs, had included numerous Jewish and Masonic symbols in his design. The four oak leaves on the value side, for example, were considered counterclockwise, and were perceived as a Jewish symbol, since the Hebrew script goes from right to left, contrary to German spelling. The rhombuses created by the crossed stems on the other side, represented in the opinion of the public, a Masonic symbol. The Reich Ministry of Finance responded that Professor Raemisch had only had one day to design the new coins in 1923, since these coins should be issued immediately after the stabilization of the Mark. And therefore, no artist could have included so many symbols in the design in such a short time, so the complaints were dismissed and the coins were minted without change until 1936.
