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 Replies: 26 / Views: 3,696 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
697 Posts |
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Valued Member
 Uruguay
217 Posts |
Wow Swamperbob, I am impressed !!  If the second crown is a counterfeit, then we need to review all others we have.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
If I had to bet, I would say that it was made by the same operation that produced the very scary 1847 UK Crown coins. I have records of 19 that were sold on ebay by different name sellers over a 3-4 month period about 2 years ago. Many of the identification tells used to identify that forgery are nearly identical to those I used in this case. The 1847 Crown was valuable enough to raise suspicion and after we saw a few they became very easy to spot. They typically sold on ebay between $ 1 and $2,000. I was able to buy one as a forgery for a very reasonable price. This forgery does illustrate how well they can be made. Here are a few of the pictures used to sell that forgery to refresh your memories. It was a topic on this forum for a while.    All of these that I have subsequently examined have been silver - all matched UK specifications rather closely. They really sold well and most buyers did not have a clue they were dealing with numismatic forgeries. The forgers have smartened up by making common dates. That is perhaps because the 1847 helped them to correct defects. The 1887 is a far more common coin. A sale for $100 or $150 does provide a massive profit since the raw materials is only 0.84 ounces of silver. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1959 Posts |
Swamperbob, very impressive work! You are a huge asset to this community! Even if I had the expertise, I would not have had the patience to put together a post so detailed and precise. |
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Moderator
 United States
34442 Posts |
awesome work @swamperbob "If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1962 Posts |
FYI, there's a specific subforum for British on here, in case you weren't aware...
Eh... for Coin #2, I'm seeing a typical higher-grade Jubilee crown saved as a souvenir, given a wipe or two over the years, now has retoned a bit unevenly/retained tone in the protected areas.
Forest through trees?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
realswatcher Does any working die omit the inner circle on this issue? This one does. That seems to be an essentially impossible error when dies were being hubbed. How would it be omitted?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
I just tested my assumptions by checking the first 15 1887 Crowns that came up in a search of Heritage's archive using 1887 Crown England as the defining statement.
I checked the inner circle - the letter E - the high rim finish - the die dots and markings I observed.
I could have gone further but none of the 15 display the noted features any more that incidentally. Two of the letter E's show some bifurcation that is not uniform but neither is as deep or uneven as this case. In addition nether is sharp enough to be positive. There were 4 cases where a clear collar seam is visible as a typical wire rim but in no case is the wire as thick or as extensive as the subject coin.
The subject coin also has a doubled eye on the queen - this is often observed on soft matrix transfers because part of the still plastic impression re-contacts the host coin and picks up a second partial impression. That double eye should be a known die error but I did not find such an error.
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Rest in Peace
United States
7075 Posts |
Thanks for this thread. It's been educational.
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Valued Member
Uruguay
217 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
Those are much sharper photos and clear up confirm a couple concerns.
The reeds now clearly visible and show narrow ridges with wide valleys on the high grade coin and the genuine example has wide ridges with narrow valleys. I think the actual reed count is the same or very close on both coins. So the issue becomes the design of the actual collars.
The other issue cleared up for me is the nature of a couple of the die defects including the eye which are confirmed. IMO the defects are the type not seen on genuine coins but rather look like the type that appear on very high end forgeries.
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Valued Member
Canada
206 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
OttawaVoyageur The 1849 "God-less Florin" looks genuine to me - I know it has been forged but this does not look like any I have seen before.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1962 Posts |
Four recent UNC examples off Heritage: Clear variations in the rim upset... some differences in the E of REG (actually notice a rather plain chip out of the bottom left of the stem of E on coin 4)... Also, on that "inner circle" (the border between the inner part of the denticles and the small ring of field before the legend)... seems to vary between between appearing a bit raised vs. simply being a flat cliff.  |
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Valued Member
Uruguay
217 Posts |
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Posted 10/03/2016 10:55 am
