Forged 1 Pound Coins..

DVcollector, yes, the coins give themselves away, specially compared to a genuine one pound coin. The edge lettering, type of strike, obverse-reverse alignment
(here in Turkey we call this "Tabut") base metal and even, if you guys know Pound coins, they msotly have a different design for each year, the counterfeiters mostly mix those years and designs, giving, let's say a 1995 Welsh Dragon pound a 1994 date. I am charging my camera at the moment and will post pictures within a couple of hours of those counterfeit pound coins as well as some modern-counterfeit Turkey lira coins from my collection for you snowman..

See those modern countrefeits as well. Please note, only the lowest one-pound is genuine, the guys who took the photo put it there for the viewer to compare its' edge lettering with the counterfeits.

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/28...ndcoins2.jpg

So far, I haven't heard or seen any forged modern US coins for circulation, again as snowman suggested, it's because probably no one bothers to produce US quarters for circulation. However, as much as I am concerned I have seen :
-2 and 1 euro forgeries.
-1 Pound forgeries
-25 Kurus and 1 Lira (Turkey) forgeries (1 Lira is about US.70 cents at the moment, so it worth forging it I guess)
-250,000 lira (pre currency reform) forgeries
-1 lira 1947 (.500 silver, original coin.. the forge is not) and 100 kurus 1934 (.900 silver, again, the original coin, the forge is not) forgeries intended for circulation.
-5 Marks 1970's (Germany) forgeries.

I collect them when I can. even though being almost no or little value collectionwise, I believe they have a sentimental value, if they were "forged" so to speak, back when those coins are legal tender and intended for circulation..

If anyone else collects them like I do, I'd love to get in touch.

Well, according to most Americans, we're "extremely polite".

I haven't heard of anyone forging coins, but notes is a different matter. On the newest issue (supposedly more "counterfeit proof"), the Canadian Journeys series, photocopies of the $5 and $10 bill out in circulation were raising the counterfeiting statistics new heights (the larger bills, the $20, $50, and $100, all had incorporated holographic foil as part of their design, and were in the process of being released while this was going on -- when they were finally out in circulation, the Bank of Canada went back and redesigned the $5 and $10 to also incorporate a strip of foil).

Anyone with a decent-quality photocopier could print money, though, because the older notes were co-existent with the newer ones being introduced.

One night, I was helping out a friend that owned a hotel with a beer vendor because his vendor clerk called in sick. Toward the end of the night, this teenager comes in and wants an 18-pack of beer. I tell him the price and he puts five $5 bills on the counter. They were so obviously fake, I decided to have some fun with the kid. I look down at what he put on the counter, and I said to him, "Gee, kid, those are pretty, but they ain't money."

He looks at me and says, "Yes they are, they're just the ones without the silver foil on them."

At that point, I just looked at him and said, "You do know that the penalty for uttering counterfeit money in the Canadian Criminal Code goes as high as five years in jail, a $20,000 fine, or a combination of both, right?"

He then decides to play innocent, and says, "What, these are counterfeits? No way, the guy I got them from is honest..."

By this time, I turn them over to see that the serial number on all five is identical, I take them off the counter, and I also take the beer back and tell him to get lost. He starts to whine about the fact that I'm stealing his money, thinks better of this, turns and leaves, and I get his license plate number and call the cops.

Kind of makes me wonder why anyone would even try this with coins, but obviously, there must be some profit in it or they wouldn't be doing it.

The counterfeit Sacawega and S.B.A dollars look pretty intresting actually!.. didn't know about that before. As the article said, they are to be circulated in Central and South American countries. Pound and Euro forged coins are for general circulation, as much as I em concerned, because almost all forged Euros and Pound coins I have come from my pocket change during I was those countries. Actually, I sometimes find one even two forged coins during a regular day!. As for Turkey, we used to have more forgeries when the coinage changed in '05 but right now I can say I haven't encountered a single forged 1-Lira coin for like one and a half years. The goverment either doing something about it or people start to recognise the coinage and learned to seperate forged from genuine, so even though I go through as many as 200-300 coins per day, I can't find one anymore.

That's probably true.

Newest scam is to take a $5 bill, and bleach it. It leaves the security foil intact on basically a white piece of paper, which they then photocopy a higher denomination note onto. There are apparently a lot of fake $20 bills with $5 foil strips on them. I think what the next step is going to be is that there will be different shaped foil holograms on different denominations.

G'day, there was a thread about the U.K. pound a while ago.
As I recall, the Bank of England estimated that 1% of all one-pound coins in circulation were fake ...
then it revised that estimate to 3%.

Here in the Land of Oz, the $2 has been counterfeited: I haven't found one myself, but if I recall correctly, Nancy & a couple of others have got them from circulation. They say that the forgeries are readily identified with the unaided eye.

Regarding folding money: polymer seems to be the way to go.

Peter in Oz

true love, indeed.
Most Aussies have a bit more weight than the family on the 1994 coin.
1969 was thev first year of the 12-sided 50-cent.
I spent some time in western Turkey in 1987: had a ball; loved the food - Marmaris, Ephesus, Izmir, Istanbul, Anzak.
I hope to return one day.
Peter in Oz