Counterfeit Ancient Chinese Coins

Yesterday, I made an appointment to visit Bob Reis and get some tactile experience with the counterfeits he owns, as well as give him the chance to look at my coins. He received me into his house (He does not have a brick-and-mortar store) in a most professional and friendly way. I would highly recommend doing business with him if you ever get the chance.

In looking at his counterfeits, Bob taught me many tips and guidelines for differentiating fake from genuine. As I have said before, the first step is to get a gut feeling about the style. This includes the caligraphic style, overall quality of manufacture, patina, general fabric, and how the coin feels in-hand. This comes from looking at hundreds to thousands of coins, so it is not an easy thing to acquire. If you get a bad gut feeling from the start, it is likely not good, and you are probably best to stay away. If you have a good gut feeling (Or the coin has good "shen"), then it is worth a closer look. The next step is to see how nice it looks. Anything that looks nice and perfect should be treated with the utmost suspicion. Perfection is not natural, so stay away until you find one with defects. But this is not foolproof. There are some defective fakes out there, and they can be very convincing. The next area to look at is the patina. If it is smooth and relatively monotone, then avoid it. Processes in nature, such as patination, are random, and it is unnatural to have such a high degree of order on a coin. Also, this order is very attractive, so counterfeiters know to give a perfect, smooth patina and make the characters stand out in order to increase the desirability of their product. Genuine coins often have a random coloration to their patina as well as some filling/covering of the characters. The last thing is the metal quality. Ancient coins have had their metal crystallize, so they should not have a resonant ring to them when dropped or hit. However, genuine coins are likely to break, so these tests are generally not recommended. All of the fakes I handled, save one, had some kind of metallic resonance when dropped or hit. However, this is not universal. There are some logical deduction methods as well, which I will elaborate on later.

While I was showing Bob my coins, the was suspect of a few, which I was suspect as well, and he condemned a couple coins that surprised me. I disagree with him on some of those, but some others I need more experience with the type to affirm or deny Bob's conclusions. But overall, I have done well in picking authentic specimens.

At the end of my visit, I asked to buy a few of Bob's fakes for my own reference purposes and to possibly use as educational tools. There is one more that I want to buy that was incredibly deceptive (fooled us both). I will show them here and explain how we both came to the conclusion that they were fake.

1. Square-Shouldered Hollow-Handle Spade

I got this one because it was the most deceptive of the group style-wise. All of the lines are very sharp, and the spade has a look of being hand-made. On all of the others, the characters were fuzzy, soft, and/or fat to some degree (avoid these!). As you can see, the patina is very smooth and mostly monochromatic, which is bad because of the reasons above. There is some color variation, but not much. It also feels very thin and powdery to the touch. This is a red flag because you want patina to be solidly-bound to the coin. The edges are a little too crisp, but it is within reason. The head is an interesting story, here is some logic. If real, this coin would have been found in the ground. Therefore there would be dirt in the handle. And if it is dirt, then it would crumble away relatively easily. However, the dirt is VERY hard (like fired clay; all of the fake spades were like this), and it sticks above the handle. If the handle was not there, then how was the dirt/clay molded in the shape of the head past where the head is? Makes no sense, so therefore it is unnatural, and thus it is fake. It has a very metallic ring to it when hit and dropped, and it does not break, meaning it is sturdy new metal. Conclusion: Fake.





Interestingly, this coin has the same character as my hollow-handle. Fortunately, it is from a different mould as the character is a little different.

2. Large-Size Square-Foot Flat-Handle Spade with "Ears"

I got this one because it is very deceptive, would fill a hole in my collection I could never afford to fill, and it has a pedigree to the David Fisher collection. Bob bought the entirety of Fisher's collection, and found that the collection had several fakes in it, this being one of several I examined. There were a couple others that were extremely deceptive (One I still think might be genuine), and I would not have immediately labelled them as such without knowing Bob's condemnation of them.

In looking at it, the style is wrong. The rims are very thick, and the characters have a thick lifelessness to them. The patina looks incredible, though it comes off with only my fingernail. The most condemning evidence was that it was a mould match to a known fake sold by Vincent Vong, a scam artist who specialized in selling fake artifacts.





3. Large-Size Pointed-Foot Flat-Handled Spade

This one is the least deceptive of the group. It looks like it was cast to look worn, to the edges, lines, and characters have an uncharacteristic roundness to them. Also the coin appears to have had most of its patina stripped. Was it cleaned and the rest of the patina still there because it was too tough to get off? No, because my fingernail can remove it. That means the patina was removed and a new one was applied. That makes no sense, other than that the coin is a fake and the current patina is the only one it got.





4. Six-Character Qi Knife

These are very rare, and if genuine, would be worth at least $15,000. When I held it, it felt light. These knives are very heavy and robust, meaning it was not a good sign. Also, it was too perfect, though the patina was better. The characters were also softer than usual and didn't have the handmade crudeness to them like I would expect to see. The lines on the handle seemed very thick and mushy, also atypical of this type. The patina flakes off easily with my fingernail and it is flaking around the rims of the reverse, making it look very odd. The condemning evidence was that it was a mould match to Fisher's specimen, which was broken. I looked at the break with a loupe, and I saw no metallic crystalization whatsoever, which meant the metal was modern. Since the knoves were so similar, one can only assume that they came from the same set of modern moulds.





5. Northern Wei Dynasty "Tai He Wu Zhu" (495 AD)

Bob gave me this one to research since we could not come to a consensus about it. He felt it was fake, while I gave it the benefit of the doubt. I am leaning towards counterfeit, but I will post an analysis later.





*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***