Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 926473, member: 66&quot;]That&#039;s a valid question.&nbsp; But you don&#039;t have own specimens to be familiar with the series.&nbsp; I don&#039;t own any of them myself (early dollars).&nbsp; But I have seen many of them both in person, in books, and in auction catalog plates (An EXCELLENT and CHEAP source of information,&nbsp; once an auction is over you can often get catalogs for a song or even free.&nbsp; That lets you see a LARGE number of genuine pieces in various grades.&nbsp; The Heritage archives are also good, but I prefer the paper catalogs because you can see more pieces faster and make comparisons easier.)&nbsp; I have also seen a lot of other genuine products of the early mint from other series. Both in person and images.&nbsp; After awhile you come to &quot;know&quot; 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.&nbsp; Then as you examine it you start to realize things like the font of the date isn&#039;t right because you are familiar with the date punches the mint used at the time.&nbsp; The star punches aren&#039;t right etc.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; It also hlps if you hav a good working knowledge of exactly how the coinage was produced at different time periods at the mint.&nbsp; How dies were made, how the planchets were made, what equipment was used for striking the coins etc.&nbsp; It can also be good to know how counterfeits are made.&nbsp; (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 &quot;coins&quot; dated from 1795 to 1803.&nbsp; And these are good quality fakes.&nbsp; Much better than the 1804 shown earlier.&nbsp; It&#039;s one of the first things I look for on a bust dollar and if I see it then I know it&#039;s a fake and I don&#039;t need to look further.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in