I went to the local flea market today, and the regular coin dealer there had some silver rounds for $12 each. I was suspicious, since the price for silver is something like $13.50 an ounce. I bought 3 of them for $35, because I was confident I could get my money back if they're not real. I asked, and he assured me that they were all 1 troy ounce of .999 fine. I was curious if you guys know if any of these are just silver plated, because I think they might be. If they are silver plated, they have absolutely no value to me, since I bought them for the silver content and not the design. The first coin is one that has the WTC on the front, and the proposed Freedom Tower design on the back. It's apparently from the Cook Islands and was minted in 2006, and has a tiny picture of Elizabeth II, along with a captions that read "Let Freedom Ring" and "ONE DOLLAR". The second is a copy of a 1776 Fugio dollar. It looks very much like the original, except it has a proof-like appearence and has "COPY" in the ring around the sun dial. And finally, the last is from Liberia and has the denomination of $20. It features and image of the U.S. Constitution on the front, and the date of 2001 and the seal of Liberia on the reverse. If these are not silver, I will certainly try to get my money back, and I will never buy from the dealer again.
I don't see an entry in the Krause catalog of world coins for the Liberia coin, but other, similar, $20 Liberian coins with American themes are made out of .999 fine silver, so if this one weighs 31.1 grams then it's probably ok. Same for the Cook Islands coin- my book is older than 2006 but they have issued several "ONE DOLLAR" coins made of .999 silver that weigh a troy ounce (or more), though a 2000 issue was only .925 silver. As for the generic round, Fugio copy, I would say that as long as the word "Silver" appears along with ".999" and "One (Troy) Ounce", it's probably legit. I saw on another forum people discussing generic rounds that were silver plated copper, but those were not technically forgeries since they just said ".999 Fine, One Troy Ounce" and while they looked silver they didn't explicitly say it. Just very, very misleading.
