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Posted 09/26/2008 03:20 am
The best way to spot a fake is to become very, very familiar with the genuine. Often, an expert in a particular coin series won't even know at first what's tipped them off that there's something wrong with a coin; it's become instinctive for them. I've often seen this amongst ancients collectors. Still, there are some very general guidelines that might be of assistance.
Appearance - the clumsiest, easiest to spot fakes are the ones that just plain "look wrong". These kinds of fakes normally aren't made to fool an expert collector, they're made to fool tourists or made as contemporary counterfeits, designed to go into circulation. Example: this Chinese-made fake looks wrong, wrong, wrong!.
Colour - "gold" coins that look brassy or coppery, "silver" coins that the silver appears to be rubbing off of in places... such things are normally easy to spot when you're looking at the coin in your hand, but a picture on the Internet can be deceptive - poor lighting can make genuine coins look wrongly coloured, and photo-editing can make a fake look more realistic.
Signs of Casting - the easiest way to make a fake coin is to make a mould (using a real coin as the source of the mould) and pour in some molten metal. Such coins have three distinctive features that declare their fakeness:
- a seam somewhere around the edge where the two halves of the mould were joined together.
- somewhat grainy, bubbly appearance, caused by tiny air bubbles getting trapped on the surface of the mould when the metal is poured in.
- When molten metal solidifies and cools, it shrinks slightly, so a cast copy will always be slightly smaller than the coin the mould came from.
Weight - the weights of all precious metal coins (and a few of the base-metal ones) are recorded in the Krause catalogue (or on the NumisMaster website. Gold is a very dense metal, and it's difficult to make a fake gold coin that's the correct size and weight, without making it out of gold. Silver is easier to get the weight right, but most counterfeiters don't bother. A balance that's accurate to 2 decimal places (0.01 grams) is a very useful tool to help spot fakes.
A Magnet - limited usefulness in fake-spotting, because very few fake coins are made of iron or steel, and very few genuine coins that are supposed to be iron or steel are worth counterfeiting. It's still a useful tool for a collector to have in their toolkit, just not so helpful in spotting fakes.
Odour - This can be surprisingly helpful. Fake coins often have some kind of goo painted onto them to make them "look old", and the smell gives it away. I once bought a cast fake "ancient Jewish coin" - they'd done a fairly good job of hiding the telltale signs of casting, but you could still smell the plasticine they'd used to make the mould out of. Some people can even tell the difference between metals just by their smell; if you have this gift, use it.
Appearance - the clumsiest, easiest to spot fakes are the ones that just plain "look wrong". These kinds of fakes normally aren't made to fool an expert collector, they're made to fool tourists or made as contemporary counterfeits, designed to go into circulation. Example: this Chinese-made fake looks wrong, wrong, wrong!.
Colour - "gold" coins that look brassy or coppery, "silver" coins that the silver appears to be rubbing off of in places... such things are normally easy to spot when you're looking at the coin in your hand, but a picture on the Internet can be deceptive - poor lighting can make genuine coins look wrongly coloured, and photo-editing can make a fake look more realistic.
Signs of Casting - the easiest way to make a fake coin is to make a mould (using a real coin as the source of the mould) and pour in some molten metal. Such coins have three distinctive features that declare their fakeness:
- a seam somewhere around the edge where the two halves of the mould were joined together.
- somewhat grainy, bubbly appearance, caused by tiny air bubbles getting trapped on the surface of the mould when the metal is poured in.
- When molten metal solidifies and cools, it shrinks slightly, so a cast copy will always be slightly smaller than the coin the mould came from.
Weight - the weights of all precious metal coins (and a few of the base-metal ones) are recorded in the Krause catalogue (or on the NumisMaster website. Gold is a very dense metal, and it's difficult to make a fake gold coin that's the correct size and weight, without making it out of gold. Silver is easier to get the weight right, but most counterfeiters don't bother. A balance that's accurate to 2 decimal places (0.01 grams) is a very useful tool to help spot fakes.
A Magnet - limited usefulness in fake-spotting, because very few fake coins are made of iron or steel, and very few genuine coins that are supposed to be iron or steel are worth counterfeiting. It's still a useful tool for a collector to have in their toolkit, just not so helpful in spotting fakes.
Odour - This can be surprisingly helpful. Fake coins often have some kind of goo painted onto them to make them "look old", and the smell gives it away. I once bought a cast fake "ancient Jewish coin" - they'd done a fairly good job of hiding the telltale signs of casting, but you could still smell the plasticine they'd used to make the mould out of. Some people can even tell the difference between metals just by their smell; if you have this gift, use it.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Edited by Sap
09/26/2008 05:43 am
09/26/2008 05:43 am
