Is this 1908 Chinese Silver Dragon real or fake?

Bought this coin for cheap without any knowledge of what it was. Came home, did a little research and found out it was a Chinese Silver Dragon. I believe the year was 1908... The text reads "34th Year of Kuang Hsu - Pei Yang"

Didn't think much of it until I seen one in similar condition selling for $275.00 on Ebay. My only question is, is it real or not? Because, it seem to be missing one symbol in the middle of all the other Chinese symbols.

If someone could give me any new information on this coin I would really appreciate it!

 

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Does it stick to a magnet? That kinda looks like rust on it...

 

I thought that as well, which made me believe this may be fake considering a lot of fake ones were made and they would "artificially age" them (if thats a good way to put it?)
Let me see if it sticks to a magnet..

 

Yes, definitally magnetic. What does that tell you? Real or fake?

 

silver coins are not supposed to be magnetic.

 

Yep if it sticks to the magnet it's a counterfeit.

 

Thats a bummer :-/ although, I'm not really suprised.. Thanks a ton guys!

Ps: Is that for all silver coins? Because if so, I may just check all of them while I'm at it...
Sorry, I'm a newbie to all this.

 

Not all fakes are magnetic

There is a large amount of fakes being dumped in the USA. They are mostly made in China & Thailand where it is not necessarily against the local law to make the coins of a foreign country. These fakes range from copies of very rare pieces & large cents to copies of common date (junk silver) coins. There is typically little or no silver in the fake silver-colored coins. Not all fakes are magnetic. The magnet test is just one tool we can use to weed-out the fakes. By making accurate weight & dimensional measurements, you may be able to weed-out some fakes. If you do a search for counterfeit detection here at CT, then you will probably find several good threads.

 

It's true that not all fake silver coins are magnetic, but all magnetic "silver" coins are fake.

I ordered a high-resolution (1 mg) scale from eBay, but really even 1/10 gram resolution should be enough to detect most fakes.

There are fakes made from actual silver, but that seems more common for the rarer dates -- otherwise it's hard for the counterfeiter to make a profit.

 

Alright, thankyou so much everyone!
Its really upsetting to me that people would make counterfeit coins.
Such a shame really

 

Believe me, you're not alone.

 

This counterfeit should be quite obvious if you know a bit of Chinese coinage. A genuine coin would look something like this without the chopmark:



Crude details, muled with wrong dies and magnetic - clearly not counterfeit.

This is still a very easy counterfeit to detect. Some of the super counterfeits coming out in the market is quite hard to distingush and with genuine Chinese coins commanding ridicious prices, quality of counterfeits are getting a lot better.

 

i stopped a guy buying one of these (much to the sellers annoyance) as he was told it was genuine but the magnet test proved otherwise, i personally do not collect chinese coins apart from bona fide circulation issues as the amount of fakes is alarmingly high.

 

I did notice the differences between my coin and others.. That is why I posted the question because I was curious to see others opinions considering I do not know hardly anything about these coins.

 

dfs

 

C

 

These (dragon dollars) are one of the most counterfeited coins in asia. Most people wont dare to buy them raw.

 

Fake. Alas!

 

Hi

I know it's an old topic, but really want to discuss sth. I notice the coin you own marked "户部” (sth like the central bank or finance department in ancient Chinese). Which mean it would not be Pei Yang, right?
As that would be really rare.

 

I have come across about 20 different chinese silver dollars dated 1900-1930. Only 2 of them where real. Then I did a little research and you can get for about $2 shitty fakes that are magnetic, for $5 silver plated non magnetic and for $20-40 well done 90% silver fakes. Seller on aliexpress we found had about 1000 of different coins for all around the world, basically anything that has some numismatic value they had a fake for it. Always do resistivity test, non of these fakes will pass it and restrikes are easy to spot any way, you cant really fake silver alloys with all its impurities from 1900 with todays 90% silver