How dangerous are GMM’s as Counterfeits?

Latest on the Bay today (image on the left):

 

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It becomes much less obvious when the crooks put “wear” on the copies and then corrode them like the “1796 cent” Jack posted above this post. In the old days, genuine cull examples of fairly common dates in the early U.S. coin series, were junk box material that sold for low prices. It wasn’t worth their while for the crooks to fabricate them.

Now the prices for such problem coins are astonishingly high, at least to me. “Stuff” that would have never made it into major auction house sales now bring hundreds, and sometimes thousands of dollars.

Most of the counterfeits that have gotten into genuine slabs were these types of items. The “damage” gives the crooks the opportunity to cover up the problems and fool the graders. Getting a “details” grade doesn’t bother the crooks one bit.

 

Yes, I feel the same way. Years ago I bought the Gallery Mint copy of the 1796 half dollar because I could not afford the real thing at the time. It was a fairly decent facsimile, but it never did anything for me. When the Gallery Mint came out with the 1796 mint and Proof sets, it sounded intriguing, but I knew that it ultimately would not please me.

 

Well I still can't afford even the 1795 half-dollar let alone a Draped Bust/ Small Eagle.

A friend of mine came up with an interesting way of displaying his coins that I'd like to try. He made rubber molds of his Roman bronzes (large-sized) and then made identical plastic copies of them. He then painted these to resemble the originals, and displayed them in these picture frames he hung on the walls. If anybody asked, he said that he owned the originals but they were kept in the safety deposit box.

I'm wanting to do the same but make a 3-D solidworks model of the coin. Then I can add the word "COPY" and also scale it up to print a plastic copy of any size.

 

Here is Gallery Mint 1796 half dollar that I bought years ago.



Here is an example of the real thing, which grades Fine-15.