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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 1925257, member: 112&quot;]Look a little closer at the full size image - <a href="http://www.cointalk.com/attachments/1892-s-morgan-2-007-jpg.331262/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.cointalk.com/attachments/1892-s-morgan-2-007-jpg.331262/">http://www.cointalk.com/attachments/1892-s-morgan-2-007-jpg.331262/</a></p><p><br /></p><p>See how the edges of the letters are soft, mushy, and not clear, sharp and distinct ? Same thing for the design itself. Then look at all the little bumps all over the place, kind of like tiny grains of sand in the metal. Then look at the hole between the stars about 8 o&#039;clock. See how along the edges it kind of falls off into the hole ?</p><p><br /></p><p>Well all of these things, any one of them by itself really, is a sure sign the coin is a fake. The hole is easy to see, the bumps are easy to see, the mushiness, well that takes a certain level of experience to readily see it. But if you look at a genuine coin side by side with a mushy cast fake (and most of them are), the difference almost jumps out at you. In time you get the point where you see it right away without having to compare coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now for the struck fakes I posted pics of, that&#039;s a different story. They are often the right weight and the right fineness of silver. They are struck coins so they will have luster, which cast fakes do not. At first glance, often even a close exam, they will look genuine in every way. They are not always easy to see and one must be very familiar with the coins (meaning genuine coins) to notice a struck fake when you see one. There are diagnostics that you use to identify genuine coins, and fakes, and you have to know those diagnostics to tell one from the other. And the diagnostics of genuine coins are different for each die pair from each date, and each mint. So there is a lot to know.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are also diagnostics for each set of fakes, each of their die pairs is unique too. And once you learn those then they can be used to identify a fake.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now look at that picture of the dies I posted, there&#039;s a lot of dies there, lots of different coins and different denominations, and from different countries. And that picture is just a tiny example of how many different dies they have. They have dies for virtually every coin ever made in the US. So take everything you have to know just to be able a fake for 1 single type of coin, and then multiply that by how many different types of US coins there have been over the past 200 plus years - and you begin to get an idea of just how much you need to know to identify a fake when you see one. It staggers the imagination !</p><p><br /></p><p>Virtually every collector there is has more than his share of fakes in his collection - and he doesn&#039;t even know it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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