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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;medoraman, post: 1326158, member: 26302&quot;]The Red Book is a great source of information. However, I think you will find the best way to spot fakes like this is to look at a LOT of coins. Most collectors that have been around for decades, (boy that statement makes me feel old), don&#039;t realize it, but we have looked at tens of thousands of coins in person, and probably a million including pictures. Even from that your mind will start to develop images of real versus fake, and then if you study wear patterns and the like it becomes even clearer how to spot fakes. I guess what I am saying is I spotted these in half a second as fake, yet I had to think about WHY I knew they were fake, I just knew.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you wish to collect coins, the best advice I can give is to LOOK AT COINS. Look at them close up, study them, learn how they were struck, etc. Knowing HOW a coin is made is valuable, since it will innately tell you how a coin could NOT be made, and therefor fake. </p><p><br /></p><p>Long time readers please forgive me for repeating, but OP if you wish to get into coins I have an assignment. Buy a bag of circulated nickels. Buy a grading book and Red Book. Go through every nickel, grading each one and putting them into a appropriate grade pile. When done, review each pile to see if they are similar, and how did you do. If you like, when you are done, put the nickels back into the bank. All this exercise is designed to do is get you used to how to look up the coins in the redbook, how to assign grades based upon the grading book, and learn how the different degrees of wear are graded, and get you used to really LOOKING at coins up close. Its like the old &quot;wax on, wax off&quot; task, something you do not realize is doing you good until you instinctively learn how to do it. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Chris[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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