1914 Barber Half Dollar - Counterfeit With Doubled Die

Interesting and educational as always. Do you active collect these?

I am unsure of exactly how this one was made, but your idea sounds right. There is a base coin underneath with a coating that appears casted on the top. On the obverse you can see a lot of places where the coating is coming off.

And yes, I quite actively collect counterfeits. Here is part of what I am going through right now figuring out what's what. All have been identified as counterfeit by someone (usually dealers) and I go through and work them out and put them in my collection.

I'll likely post some of these as I get to them if they're interesting or educational.

It's both. Above is a pretty strong selection of mostly circulating counterfeits, but I buy in lots from dealers and end up with all kinds of stuff from junk marked "COPY" to really high end stuff. Some of it takes me a good while to figure out why it got flagged as bad, like this 1878 that a dealer gave me a little while ago. It's in a home slab and I haven't weighed it or anything yet, but looks good to eye with nice cartwheel luster. I do not yet know why he flagged it, but I will figure it out.

But this is why I generally have a bunch of them sitting around, as they can take me a long time to figure out at times what the deal is. I learn more every time I have another crack at the counterfeit bin.

I agree with much of your assessment, especially the lack of sharpness in the details. But I am not well-versed in all the VAMs, and I believe some of those are exactly things like missing detail around the lips or nose. Pretty much everything turns out to be counterfeit as dealers are sharp, and I don't want real coins as not what I'm collecting, but I want to know the why and try to research all the coins as best as I can. Remember, I'm a Lincoln specialist, so pretty much don't know what many of these fakes are supposed to look like in the first place, so I start at point zero for many of them and learn my way around.

The thickness/font of EPU seems off on the dollar.