1924 Gold Double Eagle On Pawn Stars

I'm not sure, either, if he meant if the 1924 coin or if he meant the Saint Gaudens design was heavily counterfeited, but the thing that was amazing to me (if the store owner was RIGHT) is that they were counterfeiting the coins using REAL gold. Was it really worth a counterfeiters effort, back in the middle or late 1920's, to make a pretty good looking piece out of REAL GOLD that would only be worth $20.00...?

I watched the show too. I think they were saying that in general, the St. Gaudens are heavily counterfeited.
On another note, The owner doesn't know as much about everything as he makes out. Last night he also told a guy his 5 1967 Topps Pete Rose baseball cards were fake because 1) the pictures were blurry and 2)they were in too good of shape and 3) he had 5 of them. Not one of those is a good reason to call those $90.00 cards fake. He should have called in an expert since he obviously isn't one on sports cards.

I had many vending boxes of 1968 Football and 1969 baseball. I bet I had 30 mint Bob Griese rookies that ranged from a perfect portrait to blurry beyond all belief. Like I said...the guy should have called his expert...LOL.

Finally saw the episode this past weekend. Rick just says "These are one of the most counterfeited gold coins" The expert clarifies this some when he said "This is the most counterfeited date in the Saint-Gaudens double eagles."



In the 1920's NO, but the vast majority of the counterfeit US gold coins were made in the Middle East in the 1950's and 1960's and they were made with real gold. Usually they were full weight and proper fineness. They did this because Americans could not own gold or bring it back into the country, but they COULD own and import US gold coins. Gold was still $35 an oz, but the counterfeiters could take that oz of gold,form it into a double eagle, and sell it to the American tourists for $48 to $60 dollars making a profit of 50 to 80%. Sure they could have still made them light weight and/or lower fineness but that would be easy to detect leading to rejection (andno profit). Identifying them as counterfeit when they were full weight and fineness required specialized knowledge and so they were readily accepted by the tourists (who saw them as a great bargain as snapped them up.) The result was a FLOOD of fake gold into the US.

I too watched that show. The handling of the coin is not an issue. Gloves are not really that great of a thing for coins. My issue was the price. I do not understand how they paid $1500 for that coin. It could have easily been an MS62. How the dealer said MS64 and valued it at $2,000 was pretty premature in my opinion. Although Rick seems somewhat knowledgeable, I still think he paid too steep for this coin.
But hey, what a fun show to watch!

Very true, but I believe it would be hard to get over MS60 Greysheet Bid ($1240) for this coin raw.
If you spend the roughly $100 for PCGS to say this is a 64 and still... currently $1535 Bid but prices have gone down since that was taped.
And Rick can be irritating by trying to get people to believe he is the only buyer for things... kind of cracks me up by how uninformed some people are. This is the age of information with all the resources on the net. If you don't do your research, I can't feel too bad for ya.

Authenticity issues aside, just about any collector with experience should be able to tell the difference between an MS60 coin and an MS63+ coin.

Conder101, Thanks for the counterfeiting explanation for the Gold Double Eagle. I have a 1904 Gold Double Eagle that PCGS returned as "Not genuine". Your explanation has been the ONLY info I have been able to find. My main hope is that it is 24kt gold and therefor still worth bullion price.
Regards,
Perry