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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ksparrow, post: 3560038, member: 7638&quot;]I saw 1 post on the other forum that voiced an opinion that the auctions originating in Spain might be part of the problem, otherwise that was not the thrust of the thread. The person who started the thread had noticed groups of suspicious chopmarked trade dollars fromSpain appearing in auctions over the last several years, they had multiple chopmarks, and some of the chops appeared to be repeated on a number of the coins, which is unusual; also the way the chops were applied did not look normal to this (and other) experienced collectors of chopmarked trade dollars, who commented in the thread.</p><p>&nbsp; I am not chop mark expert for sure, and not really a TD expert either, but I am a fan of the series, with enough examples to nearly fill a 2 row slab box. </p><p>&nbsp; My opinion on the above coins, for what it&#039;s worth (about what you paid for it):</p><p>1874cc- 90% chance of being fake; bad dentils in places not opposite a chop and where &quot;shielded&quot; from damage by the rim; bad edge reeding (recall that the reeded collar is basically a third die, cut by machine so that the reeds are very consistent)</p><p>1876-s:&nbsp; about a 50% chance of coin being fake; edge reeding much better but still some problems, dentils pretty good, some of the lettering has a &quot;bloated&quot; look I don&#039;t like, but it has a cartouche like chop that shows up on some of the others too, so I will vote for fake chops. </p><p>1874-s #1:&nbsp;&nbsp; I really can&#039;t find anything that makes me feel strongly it&#039;s a fake, 75% it&#039;s a genuine coin, but it has that cartouche chop on it </p><p>1875-S&nbsp;&nbsp; edge reeding looks bad, and there are some bad dentils I can&#039;t explain away as damaged; also has that &quot;PO&quot; or &quot;OD&quot; chop that appeared on another coin, very unusual&nbsp;&nbsp; I think 90% chance fake coin. </p><p>1874-s #2:&nbsp; obv and rev details don&#039;t look too bad, but edge reeding looks bad, again.&nbsp; very likely a fake coin, IMO. </p><p>&nbsp; To sum up, putting a lot of chops on a fake can hide a lot of surface problems.&nbsp; A good look at the edge reeding can help tremendously but is not without some caveats.&nbsp; People who really know chopped Trades, and the frequency of appearance of different chops over the years, have an edge on those of us who don&#039;t study these things. As far as the seller of these, he may be completely honest for all I know. I think it would be unusual for someone knowingly selling fakes to provide so many decent images of all sides of the coin. JMHO.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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