Here's a coin being offered on ebay. While not high quality, it looks plausible, but Krause says there weren't any mottos on this dollar before 1866. I think there are some coins Krause doesn't know about, but in this case I have my doubts. But take a look and let me know what you think.
No motto in 1847! Motto'd Liberty Seated Dollars didn't go into circulation until 1866... See A Guide Book of United States Coins 2011, R.S. Yeoman, pg. 216 for more information.
According to Redbook there was no motto before 1866 AND there was no 1847-CC. The Carson City mint didn't come around until 1870. So either that reverse and obverse are two totally different coins or its a fake.
Exactly! The Carson City Mint wasn't authorized until the Act of March 3rd, 1863. Coinage operations didn't start until 1870, and lasted through 1893. Thereafter, it was an assay office until 1933 when it was shut down.
Learn to recognize the warning signs and - VERY VERY IMPORTANT - learn to pay attention to those warning signs. A genuine coin minted in 1847 will not have a motto. Period. The motto "IN GOD WE TRUST" did not exist until 1864. At the height of the Civil War there was a religious resurgence that led the Director of the Mint to create and place on US coins a motto that expressed the country's trust in God. The history of the motto "IN GOD WE TRUST" is interesting and worth reading. A coin with a mintmark that is dated before the creation of that mint is fake. No need to look at it further. As I pointed out in another thread, the Chinese make dies by copying the obverse and reverse of many genuine coins of various dates and mintmarks. When they strike their counterfeit coins they often mix and match the obverse and reverse dies which results in 'fantasy pieces' such as the 1847-CC With Motto SL Dollar. The counterfeiter probably does not have a Red Book and even if he did he probably couldn't read it. So, for the common Chinese counterfeits made for tourists, the counterfeiter takes no care to ensure proper pairing of the obverse and reverse dies because they know the typical tourist won't notice mispairings such as the 1847-CC With Motto SL Dollar. Experienced coin collectors should learn to recognize these clues and steer clear of obvious fakes like this.
How about an 1804 Draped Bust? Thanks to all for the feedback, which confirmed my suspicions. Interestingly, the coins involved are being offered not by a Chinese but by a French seller--for sale ONLY in France (though this constraint is not uncommon, though I haven't yet been able to find out why sellers would wish to so restrict their potential buyers. In this case, however, I think I know why...) So here is another, which, if real, might be worth millions. I should mention that this one, the 1847 seated Liberty, and a 1923 Peace Dollar are being sold as a unit, with a starting price of 60 EUR--which would be more than reasonable if these were real. In this case, I haven't seen any real obvious blooper which would reveal this coin as fake, but since Krause says "only 15 examples known", it seems unlikely to be real. Hell, it might be worth buying just as a conversation piece! Can anybody spot some apparent error in this coin?
ffrickey -> The book I cited above is the "Red Book" in case you weren't aware. I strongly recommend getting at least this book, if you care to delve into United States coins.
Both coins are fake; cast counterfeits. The seated dollar is all wrong; no CC dollars were made before 1870 and the motto wasn't introduced until 1866. The 1804, if real, would be extremely rare, but the surfaces and details are all wrong.
The angled photos alone would be enough to turn me away, not even taking into consideration the absurdity of the items being auctioned.
Not all 1804 Dollars have reeding (like the coin in the photo). Coins in 1804 did not have reeding but when the 1804s were struck in the 1830s and later reeding was in use.
If you are familiar with how this series looks you would see a LOT of errors in it. The bust is mishappen, the lettering font is wrong, the font of the date is wrong, the stars are too small, and NONE of the 1804 dollars had a reeded edge. (Class I coins have a crushed lettered edge from having the planchet lettered and then being struck in a plain close collar. The unique Class II coin has a plain edge. The Class III coins were struck in the plain close collar and then had the edges lettered AFTER striking. The class III coins are probably the examples of the unauthorized restriking of the 1804 dollar that got out in the late 1850's that the mint recovered from the buyers. Those coins were all Class II coins. later the edges were lettered and they were distributed by the Mints favorite coin dealers William Idler and Capt John Haseltine. The pedigrees of all of the Class III coins except one can be traced back to that dealership. The only one that can't is the Linderman coin that came from the Mint Directors own personal collection.)
Am I the only one thinking this, but refrained to say it out of politeness, that perhaps it'd be a good recommendation for ffrickey to refrain from considering purchasing any of these series until he becomes more acclimated about them?
Obvious fakes. If these counterfeits look at all good to you then I would suggest quite strongly that you put your money away until you learn a good deal more about US coinage.
Thanks to all for the feedback. I have just ordered the Yeoman Guide. Will be interested to see what the illustrations are like. Condor1 "If you are familiar with how this series looks you would see a LOT of errors in it." but how does one become familiar with the series without already owning some examples? The pictures in the Std Catalog are not a lot of help in comparing fonts, for example. My interest is presently more theoretical, since my father already left me some nice Carson City uncirculated Morgans, but seeing these items makes me think I might need to acquire some of the earlier dollars, though I fear my means will not extend to an 1804 Draped Bust... Any suggestions whether I should try to do anything about this offer? Write to the seller? Complain to ebay? Notify the Deuxieme Bureau? In any case, thanks again for the feedback.
The history of the 1804 Silver Dollars is interesting. You can read a short history of them here: 1804 DRAPED BUST SILVER DOLLAR
That's a valid question. But you don't have own specimens to be familiar with the series. I don't own any of them myself (early dollars). But I have seen many of them both in person, in books, and in auction catalog plates (An EXCELLENT and CHEAP source of information, once an auction is over you can often get catalogs for a song or even free. That lets you see a LARGE number of genuine pieces in various grades. The Heritage archives are also good, but I prefer the paper catalogs because you can see more pieces faster and make comparisons easier.) I have also seen a lot of other genuine products of the early mint from other series. Both in person and images. After awhile you come to "know" what a genuine piece should look like, and when you see a fake you tend to recognize it even before you can say WHY it is fake. Then as you examine it you start to realize things like the font of the date isn't right because you are familiar with the date punches the mint used at the time. The star punches aren't right etc. Contrary to what a lot of people may think you actually get better at spotting fakes by looking at a lot of genuine coins than by looking at fake pieces. It also hlps if you hav a good working knowledge of exactly how the coinage was produced at different time periods at the mint. How dies were made, how the planchets were made, what equipment was used for striking the coins etc. It can also be good to know how counterfeits are made. (Case in point with some of the better chinese fake bust dollars the way they make their dies has resulted in a couple of diagnostic features that can be seen on all of the fakes made by one of the more prolific counterfeiters and appears on "coins" dated from 1795 to 1803. And these are good quality fakes. Much better than the 1804 shown earlier. It's one of the first things I look for on a bust dollar and if I see it then I know it's a fake and I don't need to look further.
