Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle Counterfeit (1921)

Counterfeiters took the transfer process to a new level after 2008; many of the examples we traced back to a Chinese based group are in TPG holders as genuine. Duplications are so good you see every nick and mark from the genuine source coin. How they may have advanced from there makes me cringe at night...

The stars and their relationship to capitol are fixed by the die and do not shift by off center strikes. An off center strike can cause the star to get closer or father away from the edge of the coin. Note the gap between the star circled in blue and the column on the right. On the counterfeit copies the star touches the column. All Saints minted after 1907 appear to have the gap between the star tip and the capitol column.

The OP coin is a counterfeit.

Genuine 1921 (gap between star and column)


OP Example (tip of star touching column)


Known counterfeit 1921 by Bill Fivaz (tip of star touching column)

Thank you for your input everyone. I'm learning along the way.

I have now measured and weighed the coins and included obverse and reverse images (1908, 1919 and 1921). My scale only measured to the gram, not todecimal points of a gram.

All coins were 34.2 mm in diameter and weighed 34 g. I hope the images are of suitable quality:

Very much appreciate it.

Dan

The obverse of the 1919 and the 1921 came off the same counterfeit die with a date change. The reverse die appears to be the same on both coins. Look at the tilted second T in trust. I also found a counterfeit 1913 that came off the same obverse die, but did not have the tilted T in trust on reverse.

On the 1908 D Motto, I found a genuine die that matched the obverse date and mint mark, but the reverse was not a perfect match. I did find a genuine reverse that did match, so It may have been a die change at the mint. The 1908 D appears to be genuine.