1872 Seated Liberty Dollar - Real Or Fake?

Pictures are not perfect. But when I take the OP' coin and overlay it onto the PCGS coin the following is what I get.



I have never seen a fake stand up to this test. Maybe they are getting better. The devices here do seem to line up all over the surface. I admit I originally thought it a fake but it might be the lighting in the pics. I would also need a good OBV pic to overlay on the PCGS pic to see how well the OBV passes the test.

With the REV this good, I would vote its real. The front would be nice to use though for a guarantee. See a similar test on my 1879 fake here:
http://goccf.com/t/119357


Also, it would be good to see the reeding. All the fake dollars I have seen so far have reeding like shown in the link above.
The REV passes the test.

1. A rim pic like the one in the link I posted concerning the fake Morgans - scroll down to see it.
Typically fakes are thicker unless made from the same metal as a real coin.

Also on a legit coin the ridges on the edges taper downwards on their ends from side to side. Fakes' edge ridges generally are straight and crisp the entire width.

2. An in focus picture of the OBV taken directly above the coin such as with the PCGS picture posted.
Try your best to eliminate the small shadows that may happen around the lettering etc. by lights coming from the side of the coin when photographing. The shadows make it harder, when doing an overlay, to tell if it is the actual lettering/devices lining up or their shadows.

Not sure I will be able to be back on the forum today though so please be patient :)

Thanks for the information, Earle. It looks like OC-8 is the winner here.

I'm interested to hear whether the die markers match up.

Glad to have helped. And I was glad to learn there are close and far dates for this one! Now I have to check mine to see which it is! I also have a fake I deliberately bought when ebay was allowing the sale of them. I want to know if its far or near also - not thinking they really cared - just curious.

Also glad to demonstrate it doesn't take any special magic or skills (overlays are relatively simple) to detect fake coins - just some (fun!) homework.

A quick look through the PCGS images linked above shows there are actually three general date positions - low, medium, and high. Since there were 9 obverse dies, I would expect minor variations within low/med/high, which the Seated dollar site documents but are difficult for me to see the differences. The obverse looks harshly cleaned genuine to me but the big divot in the shield is a concern and the reverse throws me off with the sporadically weak letters.

@superpoacher:
While I agree people tend to jump on the fake bandwagon, the reason I got involved in this post was to demonstrate AYONE has it within their grasp to figure out for themselves if their coin is real or not. It is NOT difficult. The paid "experts" have no magic incantation they use.

I recently released/wrote a large essay showing incredible incompetence PCGS has shown concerning what they label as the No FG variety of Kennedy half dollars. Read it - its linked in my signature. It uses their OWN facts and quotations copy/pasted from their own website to show they haven't got a clue and break their own rules while mislabeling a LOT of these and costing people thousands of dollars for the misattributions - not hard to find examples of this. Very, very sad.

I was told after some people in CCF read it that the reason for all the blatant erros was that the (alleged) three graders per coin only grade and just one person does the attributions. Granted, I could not find that on their website (it could be there and I missed it), so the graders do the job "right," its just the one person assigning the variety that gets it wrong (still sad for the price paid and for the thousands paid for by hobbyists for their mistakes).

So if only one person assigns varieties while the graders only grade. Then who at PCGS studies to see if a coin is fake or not?

Whoever does it, they are simply human.

As for me, if I were the OP, what has been , especially in matching the die markers as the OP has said, the coin is real. There is no way to duplicate a coin down to the miniscule die markers.

Anyone thinking so should search the forum here when Daniel Carr once said on CCF that he knows it to be totally impossible to make an exact copy down to this detail lever. And someone not familiar with Daniel Carr's work should also search his name and his modern overstrikes to find out if anyone would know, it would be him.

I recently upgraded my 1872 to a slightly better one. It had less detail than yours, but also did not have the two damage marks on the front. The dealer sold the one I traded in for 300.00 on his website.