Bought the morgan for 30 bucks and the Half for like 10 wanted to know what you guys think they would grade, the morgan looks alot better far away lol, really bright white luster a little dirty with both.
I'm about 95% sure both of those coins are not genuine. They both look really funky. The dollar's wide uneven rim is indicative of a Chinese counterfeit. The dollar design just looks slightly "off". The (assumed) pitting making the area closer to the rims on the half is also a counterfeit indicator. See first picture... Have you weighed these pieces? I know these are common coins.... and there is the slight possibility it could be the pictures making them look funny... but they are faking everything these days.
Yah i can kinda see what you are talking about, I dont have a scale, i shall invest in one, but it feels the same as the other one, and ive done the magnet test on it so at least i got that out of the way, What where you saying about the half?
In the first picture... See how the surface of the coin looks different (a little darker) as you get closer to the edge of the coin? I can't tell from the pictures but I assume they are a bunch of tiny little pits. Which is something you see of counterfeit pieces.
Yes now that you say it, it looks like it was struck unevenly, heres another pic, when i run my fingers over both sides they feel the same, however it might be dirt because its not just dark on the rim it fades in dark no matter what angle i turn it at so that makes me feel like it is dirt, the morgan however is scaring me a bit more
Will ever morgan look the exact same? Or does that depend on the years, because i only have a 1878 a 1900 and two 1921's one thats in the picture and the other one looks almost like it and ive been comparing them to my other ones and noticed that the gap between her bottom lip to her chin is different, gah i hate fakers.
LD , Thanks for the education . I wish there were more threads on counterfeit detection . I think it was you and Budgood who used to show a series of coins and tell how you can tell they were fakes . I remember their were some like this Morgan that were fairly easy to tell and others a lot harder . Rusty
I'm pretty sure all the Morgans will look the same , except maybe the 1921s as the hub was for reworked that year . I think Miss Liberty will look the same as they mostly made the relief more shallow . Someone who knows for sure should chime in later . rzage
So weight really is the only way to tell unless you memorize what the coin looks like every little detail
The weight could be right and still be a fake . That is if they use 90% silver and stamp the coins with dies . Yours looks like it was cast so the weight should be off . You don't have to learn every nuance of every design . There are telltale signs that a lot of fakes exhibit . Grainyness or pitting , tool marks that shouldn't be there , uneven reeding on the third side of the coin . Interupted reeding were the metal was fed into the casting . 2 good books to get you started are Counterfeit misstruck and Unofficial US Coins by Don Taxay , and Standard Catalog of United States Altered and Counterfeit Coins by V. Hancock and L. Spanbauer
It depends, there are different obverse and reverse designs, depending on the year. For the 1921 Morgans (P, D, S) they have a noticeably different design. In 1910, the original Morgan Dollar Hubs and Master dies were destroyed. According to David Bowers a 1878 7 tf reverse of 1878 Morgan was used as a model for the new hub (though modifications were made). All 1921 Morgans are Obverse IV, compared to the Obverse III, the "normal" Morgan dollar obverse (1879-1904), Obverse IV (1921) has a different upper and lower lip, different cotton bolls, missing eyelash, stronger hair lines, no crease above chin, nose not as strongly engraved, and some lettering differences. The reverse is significantly different too. On the Morgan, the rim does look a little strange (towards the right side), but that could just be the pics. Design wise, nothing jumps out as counterfeit, so I'm leaning towards it being genuine.
Checked the reeding on all the coins in question and they all are evenly spaced and dont see anything that you mentioned, the only thing really left that i can do is weigh them soon as i get my scale in, hopefully they will be good if not hey you live and you learn, just glad its not a 20 dollar gold coin!
