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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;mac266, post: 2952680, member: 26371&quot;]There is a user on this very forum (I don&#039;t remember the name, sorry!) who gave me a known counterfeit 1909-S VDB cent because he knows I teach the Boy Scout merit badge for coin collecting.&nbsp; He wanted me to use it for that purpose, and I do!</p><p><br /></p><p>He had once been fooled by the coin and sent it to either NGC or PCGS for slabbing, but it came back as a counterfeit.&nbsp; I&#039;d hate to learn how much money he lost in the transaction.</p><p><br /></p><p>The company was kind enough to denote how they knew it was a counterfeit -- added mintmark.&nbsp; In other words, the coin had begun life at the Philadelphia mint with no mint mark, but with the VDB initials on the reverse, and someone had added the S.</p><p><br /></p><p>I looked at the coin with the naked eye, and despite KNOWING the mint mark was added, I couldn&#039;t see it.&nbsp; So I examined it with my 10X loupe and STILL COULDN&#039;T TELL!&nbsp; This was a well-made counterfeit, which is undoubtedly how our friend got taken by it!</p><p><br /></p><p>This all said, I&#039;m not a cent expert.&nbsp; A cent collector may have been able to tell from the shape of the mint mark or its positioning that it was added, but I do not have that expertise; I was merely looking to see how the slabbing company knew it was added. </p><p><br /></p><p>I have an inexpensive digital microscope I hooked up to my computer and looked at that mint mark through it.&nbsp; THEN I could see it, magnified many times on the size of my computer screen.&nbsp; There was a seam between the mint mark and the field on which it rested, indicating it had been added after minting. </p><p><br /></p><p>As the person who gave it to me wanted, I show this to Boy Scouts to demonstrate how difficult it can be to detect alterations of this kind, and to emphasize buying only certified coins when you are talking about keys.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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