Counterfeit Morgan Dollar Or Peace Dollar

keep as a learning tool probably.

Probably not smart to buy an 1881 CC Morgan unless its graded anyways. A slabbed example costs only a little more(relatively speaking).

I would keep it for novelty and educational purposes.

Hopefully I bought it as a known counterfeit and did not pay the authentic coin price.

I have seen a few and even did a bit of research on a 1889 CC counterfeit. On this one just to confirm what I was thinking I took the thing to 3 dealers that have been around or 25 years plus each. Of the 3 dealers 2 tried to buy the thing. The weight was spot on as well as size. The reed count was off by only 2 and I sent it to Leroy Van Allen, the reverse die was made using as 1884 CC dollar and the obverse was made by a 1889 P dollar. If it was pocketized to ware a bit of luster off that coin for a few weeks I am 100% sure it would of passed by 95% of every dealer you would show it to.

My buddy had bought the coin in a fake PCGS holder and the ID number matched a 1889 CC in AU-55 as the label said. The coin looked like a MS-61 slider. It sits in a sealed holder currently slabbed with the VAM number given to it, as well as labeled Counterfeit.

On pricey coins know your die pairs, and if a deal is just to good to pass up....Think Again. I would think 99% of all fakes that are sold by someone, the buyer thinks he is getting a steal of a deal. Steal is right but the buyer needs to look in a mirror to see who is getting robbed.

I collect and study counterfeits so whatever fakes I find would be photographed, classified, conspicuously labeled, and then come to rest somewhere in my black cabinet.

If it's a variety I already have several examples of and is otherwise not of interest, it gets stamped with "COPY" on both sides and it becomes play money for the kids. :-)

I also always keep a fake Morgan (a 1903-CC ;-) ) in my back pocket as a conversation piece.

Edit: I also couldn't vote in the poll. It seems broken.

Half of all dealers are below average , so I dunno if that's always true.

I was offered seven fake Trade dollars the other day, four dangerously deceptive. When I told the woman they were fake, she didn't act very surprised, so I suspect she had already been told.

Not all fakes are magnetic. In fact, I just picked up 7 new specimens for my black cabinet today, and 4 of them were not. However, many of them are. There is an entire battery of tests you can easily perform that will weed out 99% of all of fakes. The remaining 1% you'd need specialized equipment, or a lot of patience, to detect.

I'll actually be posting a fake-detection tutorial on the Numismetrica blog in the upcoming weeks due to a new series I'm covering on counterfeits. --> http://numismetrica.wordpress.com/

It really depends on how much the dealer in question is willing to part with them for. I tend to pay $1-3 a piece for counterfeit silver dollars nowadays. For exceedingly good specimens (from the aforementioned 1%) I may pay a premium, and for counterfeits made of silver (they exist, but are rare) I pay spot based on a reasonable estimate of purity.

Sometimes I'll have an agreement with a dealer where they let me keep any fakes I find in their holdings or recent acquisitions (of course, provided I can prove to them beyond a shadow of a doubt they're fake :-) ) or I'll go over a lot a dealer wishes to buy from a third party and haggle with the seller for the counterfeits I find.

It's a very mixed bag. :-)