Counterfeit (Fake) Detection: 1928 Peace Dollar

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NGC - An extra ray of light is one of the indicators this piece isn't genuine.

The 1928 Peace dollar had the lowest mintage of the series with only 360,649 pieces struck. That extremely limited mintage has made this issue the most sought-after of the entire Peace dollar series.

As is often the case with rarities such as this, NGC sees its fair share of counterfeits. However, one received recently was particularly interesting.

Counterfeit 1928 Peace Dollar

The coin above was recently submitted to NGC by a collector for certification. It is missing a lot of natural luster due to cleaning. What is most interesting, however, is that the date and reverse don't match. This is due to the fact that the Peace dollar was struck in two different reliefs for circulation. The first-year 1921 issue was issued with a higher relief than the rest of the series. In addition to the difference in relief, there were also slight changes made to the design.

It is evident after a closer examination of this coin that the reverse design that was utilized was that of a 1921 Peace dollar, not a 1928.

Left: Genuine 1921, Middle: Counterfeit 1928 with reverse of 1921, Right: Genuine 1935

As you can see from the photos above, the counterfeit has a third ray below the "ONE." Although it is quite mushy, it is very clearly there. This means that the counterfeiters based their reverse die off of a 1921 Peace dollar, as that is the only issue that has a third ray below the "ONE."

Additionally, the close-ups allow you to see how mushy the details are on the fake. Lastly, note the raised lumps scattered throughout the reverse, especially between the rays. Those would not be seen on genuine coins.

Tool marks can be seen on the top of the obverse.

As if having the completely wrong reverse for the date weren't enough, the obverse also suffers from the same mushiness as the reverse. In addition to that, there are also numerous tool marks emerging from the rim at the top of the obverse. These marks appear as raised lines and are caused by the counterfeiter attempting to remove an imperfection from the die. Lastly, an X-Ray Fluorescence analysis shows that this coin is the wrong composition. While genuine Peace dollars are 90% silver, 10% copper, this piece is 92% Silver, 5% Copper, and 2.5% Zinc.

Read More: Counterfeit Detection Series

Check out certified Peace Dollars on ebay.

That's an interesting muled counterfeit. I haven't seen that one before.

Most of the 1928 counterfeits that I see are altered date 1923 coins or the really clumsy transfer die counterfeit from our friends in Asia with almost half of the rays missing.

EDIT: My wife just reminded me about the altered date 1928 we saw years ago in a show in St. Louis. A friend of ours stopped by our table and showed us an obvious altered date 1928 and said he'd bet we hadn't seen one like that before. I gave him that look and he told me to flip it over. It was altered from a 1923-D and had the mm intact. He was right.

Edited by fortcollins
02/24/2021 7:26 pm

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Using silver for the counterfeit-that's a pretty serious effort.

Another impressive fake.

This one was hard for me to tell. That one on the reverse though is an obvious marker, need to look for that.

Several countries are known to produce counterfeit coinage. Rightfully so, China gets the bulk of the blame and for very good reason. They openly strike coinage using actual production methods, from the planchet to the press. All one needs to do is Google the subject to see photographs and video of this happening. Yet I do not blame China. I blame our elected officials, who also know this exists and do absolutely nothing. Until then expect more. Much, much more. The phrase "America, land of opportunity." sure has a whole new meaning.

Thanks for sharing ... interesting. It looks like utilizing a microscope can be fun !

I too find it very interesting that the counterfeiters actually used real silver alloy to produce this. Since they have produced dies of just about every rarity these days, I have often wondered why they don't use the actual alloys when producing high quality counterfeits. I can understand the copper cores on low grade counterfeits but with the advancement of technology and laser etching, I'm afraid we will see much better quality and harder to detect copies in the future. I saw a video of counterfeit gold too where the alloy tested as 18k.

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Counterfeit Detection: 1928 Peace Dollar