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Message:: [QUOTE="Hobo, post: 920655, member: 11521"]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.[/QUOTE]