R7+ Maris 24-Q NJ Copper Question

Thank you for the post. The coin is 28mm which is the correct size. I could not measure the weight yet because my electronic scale (I use for my air-rifle pellets) has a 10 gram limit and the coin supposed to be around 9.86 grams (based on the 24-P variety) and overloads my scale (EDITED: pennyweight to grams AND added overload info). I may try the balancing method with one of my others NJ coppers if I can dig them out.

Yes the color worried me also until I received them today, but in normal light they looked like some of my other NJ coppers...without the shiny areas. I took photos myself. I am adding them in my original post above.

I dug up an old mechanical jewelers scale and it looks like the coin is around 16 grams (247 grains). The NJ coppers supposed to be around 150 grains on average (but some are between 125-155) based on the info I was able to find. So there is a 100 grains difference, which very likely means that it's not copper but a heavier metal (lead?)....and thus counterfeit(?).

Also, the couple of hairline scratches on the obverse seem bright silver in color...not old copper but new metal of sort? Uploaded a 20x magnification photo.

Look at the side by side images of the Maris plate coin and the OP coin. Same dig in the field left of the P. Same dig above the L, Same digs in the shield, same dig in the field right of the shield and below the second U, same dig in the left foot of the N. You either have the Maris plate coin, or a copy made from it. If it was the Maris plate coin he probably would have mentioned the extreme weight disparity

A fourth possibility is what couple of colonial experts suggested: this may be an early (early 20th century) cast copy of the actual Maris Plate I. piece using copper plated lead OR an early electrotype of the Maris Plate I. piece.

Question: If this is a (1) contemporary counterfeit, or (2) an early cast, or (3) early electrotype.....is it worth to send it to NGC? What may be the value in those cases?

Thank you Conder101, makes prefect sense to me. I thought that maybe something had to do with the die failing and causing the marks vs. a copy. Because in the coin description (I cited in a couple of posts above) that was accompanying the 1786 24-Q NJ copper for sale in the Nov 2016 Stacks & Bowers auction in Baltimore (lot# 5398) they do mention the 24-Q Maris plate coin:

"....the Maris-Picker coin, last sold in 1992, was a trifle better despite the natural planchet striations on the reverse..."

Could that explain the same marks on this coin in question i.e. "natural striations"?

However, when it comes to the dig(s). The Maris plate coin also has a large visible dig between the second "U" (in the'UNUM") and the shield. This dig is identical to the dig in the same exact spot on the coin in question. This makes a solid argument for the "copy" nature of the coin in question. Could that dig be caused by die failure or something getting caught between the die plates (crude manufacturing conditions in the late 1700s) and being transferred to a few other specimens? An identical dig mark on the coin in question vs. the Maris sample -not caused by die failure or something being caught between the two dies- would date the coin in question not older than 1881 (which is when the Maris plates were made, I believe).

The coin in question also has another large dig mark near the rim below the shield at the 6:30 o'clock position. To my untrained eye it matches all the other digs/marks on the coin in question as far as age and consistency, but these are not present on the Maris Plate example. Also, on the coin in question there is a large dent on the rim at the 2 o'clock position above the first "U" in "UNUM" (on the reverse). These marks had to come from circulation or due to human handling. But if the coin was a copy or electrotype made in 1881 or after, why was it in circulation? It certainly would not pass from hand to hand as a regular U.S. mint coin in the late 1800s.

Just some thoughts I hope to see more clear.

Spence, your point well taken, I do not take offense!

Albeit, I am new here and yes this coin brought me here...this is not my first rodeo as far as coins. This NJ copper coin was a calculated risk, not a lottery play. Lottery is pure luck, but if you never play, you will never win. I do not regularly buy lottery tickets, except maybe 2-3 times a year, because I consider it gambling/pure chance. One has zero or negligible control over the odds of winning the lottery. However, in coin collecting (with some research, luck, and looking in the right places) one can increase the odds of coming upon something numismatically rare (or monetarily valuable...if that's what you are after).

How many of us go to coin-shows armed with research and knowledge hoping to score a nice piece? Did Mike Ringo at the 1987 ANA convention tell the seller of that Maris 24-Q (one of three discovered since 1881) that he should ask more than $400 for that R8 coin? That same coin 30 years later sold for over $50,000? Mike Ringo probably was not sure either what he got, but he knew it was something different...and he took a chance. And he (numismatically) scored!

For many like me, ebay is our "coin-show" opportunity to find an unattributed piece as we "walk between the isles" of listings. One may argue, that there aren't many bargains to be found out there anymore, unless you specialize in some obscure variety of an already obscure coin type, for example the NJ colonials. I bought my first NJ copper by chance about 15 years ago and bought only a handful since. None are worth more than possibly a couple of hundred except maybe one worth a thousand. But I find them interesting, intriguing, and they are also coincidentally my "home state's" coin.

A quick background since I did not post my background info yet: I have been collecting coins since the early 80s and been buying here and there during my combined 17 years working overseas. I did not catalog my coins (yet), but never sold one yet either. I am pretty sure that I do not have any rare pieces, but some I am sure considerably appreciated over the years. The only part that concerns me about my coins' monetary value is that I do not pay more than fair market value. Hoping that one day they may become more valuable because enjoying numismatic collecting should not become a luxury. If this NJ copper coin would have turned out to be real, I would have kept it for a while and not necessarily sold it.

Back to the NJ copper in question: during my ebay "bottom-feeding" I identified the coin from the Maris I. plate as a 24-Q which is "very scarce". Next checked if I could find recent auctions so I can confirm the "Q"-reverse variety and make sure that it's not a similar but much more common variety (P and S reverse). From the auctions I was able to find out how many are known, arrived to a potential grade, and a recent market value. Three of the five known examples were discovered since 1881. One of these three in 1987 and a second one in 2016. Coincidentally both of these coins sold at auction in Nov 2016 and Mar 2017. I felt the risk of being a fake less compared to another rare-variety that had no examples discovered since 1788 or even 1881.

Next I went to check into the seller. This ebay seller is a small consignment business with over 5,900 feedback, zero neutrals, and 2 negatives from a year ago...both seemed to be buyer-related. The seller's inventory had a few coins but mostly antique items, photo, paintings, vintage electronics, etc. So not a coin dealer...albeit he did seem to grade the other coins he had for sale correctly. He did write in this NJ copper coin's ebay listing description that he knows of Maris plates but does not have access to the reference. So the seller seemed to hoped the market-place will take care of the final price. So with the seller seemingly "cleared" of any nefarious intent, I figured that there are two choices: the person who consigned it to the seller does not know what he/she has, or they know it's counterfeit/copy but want to "insulate" themselves from the sale by having the seller take the risk. This is either to protect their own ebay feedback or to defraud the seller AND the potential buyer.

So I called ebay and asked them what my options are if the coin was a fake. They said I would receive a refund if claimed within 30 days. I asked them to note our conversation in their record, and note that I called about my concern the day before the listing ends. I also told them, that either this coin is a fake (which the consignee may not know) or the seller AND the consignor does not know the potential real value of this coin.

A few days into the listing for this NJ coin the bid was still at around $128 and stayed there all the way until the day before the listing's end. I wondered that I may be wrong with the variety identification, but I went back and double-triple checked the print-outs (and my connecting lines drawn on them) of the two recent auction examples, the Maris plate coin, and the auction piece. It's a 24-Q, no doubt.

So I decided to take a calculated risk, not unlike Mike Ringo did in 1987. A few hours before the auction ended the bid was still at only $250. I thought that I will be able to get it for a few hundred dollars maximum. In the last 10 minutes, the price dramatically increased to over $720...and in the last 5 seconds it jumped to over $3,000. So there were at least one or two others who waited in "ambush" hoping to score! :) I paid with Paypal using my credit card. So I have ebay, Paypal, and as a last resort "reverse charges" on my credit card as options for a refund.

The rest of the story you already know from my posts above. Apparently, my nearby NGC-certified coin dealer (admittedly not a colonials specialist) upon examining it did not find anything suspicious. He did not weigh it though. Last night I contacted the seller (small consignment company) and explained to him what's going on. He said that he feels he should have done more research on this coin, and asked me to send him my research on it to help him figure things out. I suggested to him (and he agreed) to hold the payment to the consignor in escrow until this gets sorted out. He also extended the deadline for returns/refunds if I decide to send it to NGC for authentication. I also suggested (and he agreed) to ask the consignor about the provenance of the coin. He seemed amicable, but at this point it does not matter because I have a strong documented case with ebay if I decide to file a claim.

At this point, this is how I see things:

- Return the coin to the seller for a refund
- Send it to NGC in hopes that it's a genuine but "fat" NJ copper that is about 30-45 grains heavier than the heaviest (Breen 910) documented NJ copper at 203 grains (1% chance?)
- Send it to NGC hoping that it's a genuine NJ cent that was minted on a different material because copper became scarce in 1788 (1% chance?)
- Send it to NGC and get it authenticated as an early counterfeit (20% chance? // worth $100-200 // and have the seller refund the difference (too complicated?)
- Send it to NGC and have it come back as a modern forgery (80% chance?).

I am curious and would not mind sending it to NGC, but I am concerned that (even if the seller honors an extended deadline) ebay may not allow a claim past 30 days AND if sending to NGC may void ebay's return policy.

"He also extended the deadline for returns/refunds if I decide to send it to NGC for authentication. "

Not to degrade somebody I don't know but not sure on this one. ebay gives you 45 days with Buyer Protection. After that you are basically at the integrity of the ebay as after that 45 days ebay won't even hear your case.


I can't claim to be an expert here but Occam's Razor: patina is off and the weight is WAYYY Off.

Also, color me a cynic but the seller (or the consignee) almost certainly is BSing you.
The story makes no sense.
He post a little beat up coin that ends up selling at the last moments of bidding for 3 thousand dollars and it is only now that he is intrigued?


Yeah sorry nonsense.

I was a bidder on a coin at an auction in which the coin (unknown to everybody except me and a few other bidders) knew was a pretty rare Overton variety. The bidding got super intense and went for about 6x the upper limits of its estimate. The guy IMMEDIATELY messaged me asking what that was about and why that coin went so high. Immediately. He messaged others as well.

Why was this guy not curious why this coin sold for 4 digits? Why only after he got your money and after you contacted explaining it to him has decided to have an interest in the coin?

Because he knew he had a fake.