Oops... bought a counterfeit 1882 8 Reales coin

I agree a magnet is the first line of defense, but ...
"cheap" might be relative to the coin being counterfeited and to the shop/person making it. The ten counterfeits I intentionally bought were CC Morgans made with Magnesium (best guess because of color and comments from a dealer).

"They" are a crafty bunch. The person that initially sold them to my friend had the ten of them in cardboard flips and taped inside a plastic sheet (for a three-ring binder). The crook would not let my friend remove one to weigh it but the price was too tempting (human greed?) and the crook knew this. (In ca. 2010 most portable scales would "error out" with 10 Morgans on it and wouldn't give a weight.) My friend knew the deal was TGTBT (Too Good To Be True) but the crooks use a scale that has human greed as a counterweight to determine their price.

When I looked at the eight CC Morgans, I was a relative newby of 4-5 years collecting Lincolns and had no idea what to look for on fake Morgans. But when he said he got them for only $15 each I knew something wasn't right.
The following is how I came to realize they were fake, even before weighing or placing a magnet on them.
1)Price was way too low for AU/Unc CC Morgans (of varying years).
2)When looking at the MM I realized they were all in the same location/position which shouldn't be the case for hand-punched MM's.
3)With my loupe I found two diagonal die scratches above the two L's (DOLLAR) on every Morgan reverse! Pronounced markers like that wouldn't carry over from one year to the next, let alone 5-6 years.

The counterfeiters used the same reverse die on all the fakes. When I took them home to answer my friend's question about the authenticity of them I was able to remove one and weigh it and found it weighed only 18-19 grams Not +- 26.7 grams.

Anyway, my apologies for the winded and drawn-out post but I thought others might find it helpful and if it saves someone the agony of buying a fake it's been worth it.

ps. The fake clash Peace dollars were less obvious but equally desirable if real. They were fakes by association until I put them on the scale to confirm the low weight. There was an almost full outline of the eagle showing up on Lady Liberty's bust.
The incuse parts of the die usually don't have any clash elements on them. The two different obverse dies were created with the fake clash on them!

 

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Report this seller to the show. You really don’t want to go to that show again and find him again and the bats in the truck

 

Oops. I should of read on about new dealer.

 

I thought the same