8 Reales, But Are There Some Fakes?

While I would like to give weight and SG and any other details, I can't. I don't have a scale. The best I would be able to come up with is measurements. They all react properly to a magnet. I had someone say a few looked fake from the same pictures I posted. I have had others say they all looked correct. I basically don't know enough about them yet.

Before starting, "ActualMammal" (picturing a 'possum typing on a laptop in a Starbucks or something)... if you read some archived messages on here, forum member swamperbob has for years exposed the forgotten occurrence of full silver (or close) later 1800s illicit "restrikes" (aka counterfeits) of portrait 8R made for the China trade where they were preferred.

Picking Bob's "Class II" from original regal strikes is something I leave to him, as it can be quite challenging to differentiate - Bob himself often has doubts on particular coins. I focus on spotting modern numismatic forgery.

Anyway, "most" of these pieces appear to be kosher - not modern fakes. The 1809 has those somewhat curious chops in the R obv. field, but I don't see anything else to condemn the coin.

The (2) pieces that jump out are the (2) 1798 pieces, mainly because of how the denticles look. The flat, even tone is also suspect on 1st glance for the 2nd of the 1798s shown.

However, full disclosure, that 2nd 1798 looked familiar, and sure enough, it IS a known modern fake that has been observed a number of times. Amusingly, that same 1798 obverse has been found paired with a Guatemala mintmark reverse.

See the montage below and study for points to pick up on:

Some of my thoughts:

The edge on the first 1798 is odd. Looks like it could have been edged with 2 parallel dies, but one of the dies had damaged rectangles? How does that happen?

Incomplete denticles above CAROLUS in the second 1798 are pretty damning.

The 1822 Potosi edge looks off to me, as well. The design looks larger than what I'm used to seeing (granted I'm mainly a Mexico City guy). Also, the edge design shows signs of being edged at least twice, but I can't see the any overlaps.

1783 Mexico and 1822 Guanajuato appear to be nice original coins to me. The rest would require more tests.

A weight of 26.24g is not likely to be genuine.

Since you don't believe my opinion on how much weight loss can be attributed to wear then go check the opinion of others. swamperbob has posted about this in this forum and the are plenty of other's on other coin forums.

I would also still like to know if anyone has information on the variability of diameter. As noted above, the two coins that were said to be genuine in the opening post have significantly different diameters.

Regarding weight: Even for Mo-mint pieces where weight as made was typically very close to standard ("27.07g"), a coin legitimately worn down to a G-4 grade or close could (really should) absolutely be down to 26.2g weight.

Back in 2011 when silver boomed near $50, I handled a decent amount of worn Barber halves and weighed a lot of them for study purposes. The heavily worn AG (maybe even "Fair-2") types were down as low as 11.4g from the as-made 12.5g!!

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Diameter within the pillar and portrait 8R series is ALL over the place depending on date range and which mint. Impossible to summarize in a few words.