1802 Mexico City 8 Reales - Counterfeit?

Upgraded photos, especially of the edge, which I believe show the characteristic "grip marks":

Thank you, Swamperbob! I plan to return the coin, which is a difficult call for me since I really like its appearance. But as my first purchase of any 8 reales, I'd prefer to find a genuine coin.

Are there any dealers who are fastidious and extremely knowledgeable about 8 reales, from dos mundos through cap and ray?

Hi Swamperbob,

I just tried sending you an email through the forum to ask on that venue for the names of some of the reliable ebay sellers but was unable to do so as a new member. I purchased this coin from an ebay seller who I believed to be reliable (who claim over $10 million in coin sales) with a 99.8% feedback rating. I don't expect any problems returning the coin, but I am disappointed that I placed too much confidence in their opinion of authenticity. If there's any way to let me know of who some of the good guys are there, I would be very thankful.

Again, many thanks for your help.

On ebay, I never had issues with those sellers for pillars : lucernae and coinworldtv, as well as sussi01negro, sedemo (although those don't often have pillars

Or the NGC coin was also a Boston Style counterfeit. Remember, not everyone in the "Spanish Colonial" Coin World agrees with Swamperbobs carefully researched conclusions. I believe many of these coins that were high grade may have been encapsulated as real and accepted by the TGP services.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

I purchased a 1797 8 Reales earlier this year which might also be a "Boston Style Counterfeit".

I personally decided to keep mine because it is not a counterfeit in the traditional sense of the word. These were struck for trade just as the originals were and they have the proper weight and finesse not to mention the correct design.

The only difference being "when" they were struck.

I consider them similar to the Maria Therese dollars.

I Just did my own side by side comparison.

Did anyone notice that the Damage on both coins includes some IDENTICAL DAMAGE?

For instance place both portraits together and look at the odd shaped dent (J) in the field in front of the Kings face. Also the scrape along the jaw line is the same, as is the damage behind the head of the King and the ding on his armour.

NGC has clearly encapsulated a forgery. Great discovery.

Do you know who owns the encapsulated version. It would make a simply fantastic pair coupled with your coin.

I was not aware you could do such an overlay - shows how OLD I am. I was not raised with computers. I graduated from college about the time the first hand held calculators from Texas Instruments came out. We had one kid in 4th semester Structural design that had one (the rich kid in class) and the professor went nuts when he brought it to the finals. Now I understand they are mandatory in the same situation because no one does the calculations by hand anymore.

Looking again at the overlay picture - I now see that the punch elements are the same - but the spacing varies just a bit proving that two dies are involved. So I now see what you mean. You can ignore my earlier comments.

But one caution, you need to know more about the story behind die production that I was told about years ago. The Boston dies were at one time produced EXACTLY like the originals with a King punch and die arrangement. They made multiple dies with the same punches so there would be die variation as expected and also because they were operating like a mint and dies wore out. The dies were shipped in from somewhere (that is one element I have not been able to discover is the die maker). Period (1890's) letters that have recently come to my attention lead me to believe the US Government was involved (or at least viewed the undertaking with a blind eye) - so it is not a long stretch to postulate that the US mint iteslf could have been involved. That is speculation based on a statement in one letter from a US Senator to a lawyer - but it fits the pattern that this was a quasi official but "secret" production facility.

It has been proved beyond any doubt that the US mint did attempt to open an "official" mint in California to make restrike Portrait Dollars using US silver in the early 1870 era. This was only abandoned when the Mexican government demanded a 15% royalty. But the need to trade with China and the preference on the part of the Chinese for "Bustman" dollars did not go away.

In any event - I have also been told in correspondence with another researcher that the dies were produced from punches copied from real coins. This technique is documented elsewhere and is a well documented procedure used by forgers for a century or longer. It involves copying each element (letter, portrait etc.) on the coin separately and making a punch set. The process used is virtually identical to using a punch block similar to what the real mints used. It makes complete sense to do so before newer technologies came into being.

The other story which I heard from the old forger that started all of this research back in 1960 - was that they also used a 1 to 1 pantographic lathe to duplicate dies. This story conflicts with his other statements about punched the dies. But they could have had two die sources - over time. This theory makes more sense to me since it uses technology that is known to have existed at the time he was involved (1920's and 1930's). The apparatus (lathe) used would be similar to the machine that Francis Henning built ON HIS OWN in the late 1940's or early 1950's to make his famous nickel counterfeits. To me it makes complete sense to think that in the 1880's dies would have been punched but that by the 1920's a die could be lathed quicker and less expensively. The Boston type forgery did occur over a period of about 50 years so advances in technology would have been employed.

My real wish is that someone at the time had documented exactly what was being done and that I could find that document. But that is very wishful thinking since the enterprise was not 100% on the "up and up". But I keep searching archives for clues. It is a very interesting detective story.